EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has officially proposed the introduction of binding quotas of asylum seekers each member state is to fill. In his first State of the Union speech as head of the EU's executive body, Juncker has said the distribution of migrants is to involve some 120 000 people more than had been previously planned. Germany is to receive the biggest number (31 443) of migrants under the newly proposed scheme, followed by France (24 031) and Spain (14 931). All the countries involved will thus have migrants from Italy, Greece and Hungary (the countries most severely affected by the influx) relocated on their territory. Poland, which had for some time been reluctant to the scheme, will have to accept 9287 more people if it is approved. The Netherlands (7214) and Romania's (4646) potential quotas come next, slightly above those of Belgium and Sweden. Of the smaller nations, Bulgaria is to receive 1600 more migrants (earlier media reports suggested the final number would be 1500), slightly above Slovakia (1502) and Croatia (1064). Denmark, the UK, and Ireland will have the option to choose whether or not to accept migrants. May 2015 saw the introduction of non-binding quotas for 40 000 migrants which were harshly resisted by countries like Slovakia and Hungary. Now asylum seekers will be relocated in a "compulsory" way, Juncker has insisted. His proposals come at a time when Europe is looking for ways to address its biggest migrant crisis for the past decades, hundreds of thousands of people from Syria, Iraq and elsewhere crossing its borders and heading to Germany. A previous attempt at the introduction of mandatory quotas have been met with resistance from some EU member states. "There is a lack of Europe in this union, and a lack of union in this union," Juncker told MEPs in his speech at the European Parliament on Wednesday morning. He also proposed the establishment of a permanent relocation system and unifying approaches to asylum seeking, also by considering amendments to the Dublin II Regulation. Juncker's plan is yet to be discussed at a ministerial level later in September.
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