EU will free up more funds for migration

Funds are fast-tracked for Greece, as the migration flow shifts.

The European Commission pledged new funds and other help to countries facing heavy flows of migrants, as the front-line of the crisis shifts from Italy to Hungary, and now to France, Britain and Greece.

The EU “is fast-tracking the Greek request for €2.74 million in emergency funding” to support the first reception response to migrants arriving on the Aegean islands, EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters in Brussels Friday.

Nearly 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July, a massive jump from less than 6,000 the same period last year, he noted. The commissioner’s comments largely focused on his home country, where on Friday lawmakers approved the country’s third bailout despite criticism of the austerity measures and painful reforms pledged to get the funds.

The influx of migrants has been shifting in recent months. The deaths of more than 800 migrants coming from Libya to Italy at the end of April sparked the latest uptick in EU attention. Hungary saw a surge last month, and the situation is heating up on the French-British border and Greece in recent weeks.

The number of migrants and asylum seekers who have arrived by sea so far this year is approaching 250,000, according to the International Organization for Migration.

With rescues at sea occurring at a rate of over 1,000 migrants a day this summer off Italy and Greece, the number of arrivals has already surpassed the total in 2014. The Mediterranean Sea is now the world’s most deadly border zone for migrants, with total fatalities reaching 2,300 people this year, according to the migration group.
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Earlier this week, the European Commission approved national funding programs for Greece that amounts to €474 million, but the management authority for these funds is not in place yet. It was expected to be set up months ago, said Avramopoulos, but now the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras confirmed that “it will be appointed shortly.”

Athens will also now trigger the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to provide immediate humanitarian assistance, which can include expertise, intervention teams, and equipment.

It is the same mechanism used to send tents to Hungary, which on Thursday sent an official request for €8 million in emergency assistance to help expand reception capacities. The commissioner also said that the high-level conference on the Western Balkan route (also called “the Budapest conference”), which was announced at European Council at the end of June, will be held in October.

More emerging funding is in sight for the other front lines in the migration crisis.

To cope with the situation in Calais, the sea border between France and Britain where hundreds of migrants are trying to reach the U.K. via trains and ferries clogging the underground tunnel, more funds are expected soon.

“I expect a second request for emergency funding, on top of the €4 million granted to France in February, to arrive shortly,” said Avramopoulos.

And Austria also sought emergency funding to help with the rapid expansion of its reception facilities. The amount of money was undisclosed and the funds should be allocated by the end of August.

Last month European nations failed to agree on how to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers already in Greece and Italy among its members over the next two years. EU countries have so far only agreed to take about 32,000 thought the Commission expects to top up this figure by the end of the year.

But some countries are still reluctant, particularly many Eastern European members, in addition to Spain and Austria.

Madrid committed to taking 1,300 refugees, far from some 4,300 requested by the Commission. And Vienna refused to commit to any figure, complaining that it is already dealing with more asylum seeker requests than Greece and Italy put together.

The commissioner in his comments evoked the conflict between the Commission and some member states to equally share the burden of migration.

“Member states must step up in providing the Poseidon operation with what they have committed in the last summit,” said Avramopoulos referring to the Frontex’s Operation Poseidon that takes place in the Aegean Sea to rescue migrants.

At the extraordinary European Council on April 23 member states promised to triple the financial resources for Triton and Poseidon, the two EU-led rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

On the island of Kos this week, more than 1,000 migrants were locked by authorities in a football stadium in conditions which aid groups described as deplorable.

But the commissioner, who visited Greece on Thursday, said “the situation is under control” and tourism, a vital industry for the financially struggling country, “is not affected.”