Solidarity fine for countries that refuse to take in refugees

The idea is part of a long-awaited proposal to reform the EU’s asylum rules, which were stretched to breaking point by the arrival of more than one million refugees and migrants last year.
A copy of the draft regulation confirms that the commission has watered down earlier ambitions to centralise European asylum policy by allocating refugees around the bloc according to a quota system determined by a country’s wealth and size.
The UK can choose whether or not to take part in the new EU asylum system. 
Under the latest plans, EU countries would still be responsible for housing refugees who arrive on their territory, preserving a key principle of existing asylum rules known as the Dublin regulation.
Unlike under Dublin, refugees could be dispersed around the EU via a “corrective fairness mechanism” in the event that countries that are the first arrival point are unable to cope. Commission officials are anxious to ease the pressure on frontline states, notably Greece and Italy, which have been struggling to handle the large numbers of refugees and migrants arriving on their shores.
Countries that refuse to take in refugees would be required to pay EU states that are doing more. Although the sum has not yet been finalised, the draft law suggests “a solidarity contribution” of €250,000 per asylum applicant.
The idea chimes with the thinking of Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, who has long argued that eastern and central European countries should be denied EU funds for refusing to help with the EU migration crisis.
Hungary and Slovakia refused to take part in a one-off scheme to redistribute 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to other EU countries, but there was nothing in existing EU law to levy any financial penalty on them.
The corrective fairness mechanism would be modelled on that redistribution scheme, which has seen painfully slow progress. Out of the 160,000 refugees, only 937 were resettled in first six months of its operation.
Although the European court of justice routinely issues fines to countries that flout EU law, introducing fines for not taking refugees is likely to be controversial.

source: The Guardian