EU's top court dismisses challenge against refugee relocation scheme
The EU relocation scheme concerns some 160,000 refugees. According to the European Commission, more than 24,000 refugees have been relocated up to now.
The two member states threw the gauntlet to Brussels in December 2015, when they appealed to the Court of Justice of the EU to annul the relocation scheme, arguing that it was not unanimously adopted and it was neither a suitable response to the refugee crisis nor necessary for that purpose.
Refuting the arguments, the Court of Justice ruled that as a non-legislative act, the scheme was not required to be adopted unanimously by the Council of the EU.
The Court also ruled that the legality of the decision cannot be called into question on the basis of retrospective assessments of its efficacy.
The small number of relocations so far carried out under the scheme should, in particular, came down to the lack of cooperation of "certain member states," the court stressed.
According to the European Commission, Poland and Hungary haven't taken in any refugees since September 2015, when EU member states pledged to relocate a total of 160,000 migrants from Greece and Italy within two years.
The Czech Republic has not relocated anyone since August 2016 and has not made any new promises for over a year. Slovakia to date has only taken in 12 refugees.
As of July 24, the total number of relocations stands at 24,676, of which 16,803 are from Greece and 7,873 from Italy.
As for resettlement, 17,179 persons have been resettled since July 2015, when member states agreed to resettle a total of 22,504 asylum seekers.
A tide of refugees fleeing war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and poverty in other Middle Eastern and African countries in 2015 led to Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War II.