EU member states that do not accept their share of refugees will be asked to make a "solidarity" payment to the countries that do, under plans announced by the European Commission on Wednesday.
The EC unveiled the "fairness and solidarity" mechanisms to amend existing rules in a bid to reduce the excessive pressure of asylum applications on the member states where the vast majority of people are entering the EU, such as Italy, Greece and Hungary.
The current Dublin rules, the common European asylum system, dictate that asylum applications should be processed in the country where an asylum seeker first arrives.
The first part of the new measures is a fairness mechanism that would be triggered when a country has received more than 150% of asylum applications above an agreed reference point. New applicants in that country will be allocated across the EU until the number of applications falls back below that level.
The reference point for each country will be calculated based on a member state's GDP and population size.
The second measure announced today is aimed at member states that decide initially to not take part in the fairness mechanism. Those countries will be asked to make a "solidarity financial contribution" to those member states that do.
According to reports in the Financial Times the fine would be €250,000 per asylum seeker. However, BuzzFeed News understands there isn’t yet an agreement on a specific amount.
The Commission also believes will ultimately allow member states to better share their responsibilities to accept refugees. The UK, Ireland and Denmark have an opt-out on the new proposals.
The proposals will sit alongside the EU’s existing emergency relocation scheme, which aims to relocate 160,000 refugees from the countries most affected by the refugee crisis, Italy and Greece, by September 2017. To-date only 1,441 refugees have been relocated.
One obstacle that the commission is likely to face is that several member states refuse to participate in any refugee relocation programme. Hungary has announced a referendum on the issue, while Slovakia is taking the EU to court over migrant quotas.
The relocation scheme is just one facet of Europe’s broader refugee crisis. Germany alone welcomed 1.1 million asylum seekers last year. Syrians made up 40% of these arrivals, with the country receiving nearly half of all Syrian refugees in Europe.
So far this year, nearly 185,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean. Some 80% of the arrivals are from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. More than one million people made the journey last year, according to UNHCR data.