EU to Open Case Against Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic Over Migration

The European Union's executive will decide on Tuesday to open legal cases against three eastern members for failing to take in asylum-seekers to relieve states on the front lines of the bloc's migration crisis, sources said, quoted by Reuters.

The European Commission would agree at a regular meeting to send so-called letters of formal notice to Poland and Hungary, three diplomats and EU officials told Reuters. Two others said the Czech Republic was also on the list.

This would mark a sharp escalation of the internal EU disputes over migration. Such letters are the first step in the so-called infringement procedures the Commission can open against EU states for failing to meet their legal obligations.

The eastern allies Poland and Hungary have vowed not to budge. Their staunch opposition to accepting asylum-seekers, and criticism of Brussels for trying to enforce the scheme, are popular among their nationalist-minded, eurosceptic voters.

Poland and Hungary have refused to take in a single person under a plan agreed in 2015 to relocate 160,000 asylum-seekers from Italy and Greece, which had been overwhelmed by mass influx of people from the Middle East and Africa, according to BGNES. 

On the other hand, EC has once again called on Bulgaria to start fulfilling immediately its mandatory quotas for refugee receiving, reported BNR.

The state has received 50 people from Greece at a mandatory quota of 831.

At least 470 people from Italy have come here, but not a single person has appeared so far.

Still, the government has voiced its readiness to start voluntarily the redeployment of 40 Syrians from the refugee camps in Turkey. 

Novinite.com recalls that Slovakia agreed to accept a certain amount of migrants, but less than its quota.

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