EU threatens to sue member states for not accepting their quota of refugees

The European Commission has threatened to take EU member states who do not accept the bloc’s asylum seeker quotas to court.

The quotas’ legality was confirmed on Wednesday morning, when judges at the European Court of Justice threw out a joint legal challenge against them by Hungary and Slovakia.

At a press conference in Brussels after the ruling, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Migration Commissioner, told reporters that states that continued to refuse compliance with the plan “in the coming weeks” would be referred to the ECJ.

“It is time to be united and show full solidarity. The door remains, it is still open, and we should convince all member states to fulfil their commitments,” he said.

“But we should be clear that member states have to show solidarity now because it is now that some member states need help.

“If the member states do not change their approach in the coming weeks we should then consider to take the last step in the infringement procedure: to refer Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to the European Court of Justice.”

Mr Avramopoulos, a Greek politician from the New Democracy party, added that “solidarity cannot be à la carte” and called on EU countries dragging their feet on the policy to come to their neighbours’ aid.

Since 2014, around 1.7 million people have travelled to the EU with the intention of settling there, with many fleeing wars or strife in the Middle East and Africa.

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Many of these people arrive in Spain, Greece, and Italy due to their geographical location – putting pressure on those states, also hit by economic crisis, to care for them.

As a result, in 2015 EU leaders agreed a plan to relocate asylum seekers to other EU countries to spread the burden, agreeing the policy by majority vote despite opposition from Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Romania.

In their legal challenge to the ECJ Hungary and Slovakia argued that the policy exposed them to the risk of Islamist terrorism, because many of the migrants are Muslims. Their argument was thrown out and cannot be appealed.

The ECJ could impose large fines or subsidy cuts on the countries as a means of encouraging them to comply, though there is no mechanism to actually force them to take migrants.

At a press conference following the ruling, Mr Avramopoulos downplayed any suggestion that the countries could be kicked out of the EU for not complying.