The European Commission on Wednesday warned that 19 EU member states, including France and Germany, faced possible sanctions for failing to implement rules on handling asylum seekers coming to Europe.
“It is about time that member states stepped up to the plate and did what they need to do,” European Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans said as EU leaders gathered in Brussels for an emergency summit on the migrant crisis.
“A common asylum system can only work if every country respects the rules,” Timmermans said after officials met to prepare for the summit.
The 28-nation EU has established a whole series of rules governing the handling of asylum seekers in Europe, from their arrival, to registration, treatment and rights pending a decision.
The system was completed in July this year but the flood of hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and turmoil across the Middle East and Africa in recent months has strained it to the limit and exposed divisions within the European Union.
EU interior ministers agreed yesterday to relocate some 120,000 processed asylum seekers around the bloc but this is an emergency measure and falls outside the new system.
Timmermans said the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, had taken the first step in 40 infringement procedures, in addition to 35 already opened, by sending formal letters of notice to the concerned countries.
He said only five member states had fully transposed the EU rules into national law and urged their peers to follow suit quickly.