The European Commission on Wednesday proposed measures designed to improve the management of migration, including through relocation and resettlement of a total of 60,000 migrants. Bulgaria’s combined allocation under the two schemes is 788 people. The proposed allocation of migrants was made according to each EU member state's GDP-per-capita, population and unemployment rate as well as the number of migrants each country has already accepted on its territory. The Commission is proposing to set up an emergency relocation scheme to assist Italy and Greece – the two countries that have been hardest hit by the wave of migrants arriving in Europe across the Mediterranean to escape armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa. “This scheme will apply to Syrian and Eritrean nationals in need of international protection who arrived in either Italy or Greece after 15 April 2015 or who arrive after the mechanism is launched. A total of 40,000 persons should be relocated from Italy and Greece to other EU Member States based on a distribution key over the next two years,” the EU executive said in a statement. Bulgaria will be allocated a total of 572 migrants under this scheme - 343 from Italy and 229 from Greece. The Commission also adopted a recommendation asking member states to resettle 20,000 people from outside the EU, in clear need of international protection as identified by the UNHCR, based on a distribution key over two years. Member states who participate in the scheme will be entitled to financial support, with the EU making EUR 50 M available in 2015-16. The allocation for Bulgaria under the resettlement scheme is 216 people. The proposals will now go before the European Parliament, where a majority has previously voted in favour. About 10 European governments, including central and eastern European, have opposed the plan, Spain and France have expressed reservations, while Britain's newly elected Conservative government, which wants to cut immigration, said it would not take part in either scheme. Germany, which was allocated about one-fifth of all migrants under the plan, backed the proposals. "You can negotiate the allocation. It won’t be easy but the way is right," Reuters quoted Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere as saying in Berlin. The proposals will also be discussed by the EU interior ministers on 15 June and by the EU summit in Brussels on 25-26 June.
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