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The UN Refugee Agency regrets that the deal is “at the expense of other vulnerable refugees around the world.” UNHCR wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right coalition had promised to host 100 refugees from the burning Moria camp on Lesbos, including 50 children. However, instead of the 500 people agreed per year from the UNHCR program, only 400 people will be admitted.
The aid organization Vluchtelingenwerk criticized “Greiler’s petty soul”: “It is humiliating that a price has to be paid for emergency aid.” Left-wing opposition parties spoke of the “cynical horse trade.”
On the contrary, right-wing populist politicians condemn the acceptance of refugees. “The burning of camps is now rewarded with a ticket to the Netherlands,” right-wing populist Geert Wilders tweeted.
Prime Minister Rutte’s right-wing liberal party, in particular, had strictly refused to accept refugees from Greece and only relented under pressure from its three partners. Under the coalition agreement, the asylum procedure will also be toughened.
159 EU parliamentarians demand: Do not rebuild the camp
After the fire in the Moria refugee camp, more than 150 MEPs urgently warned against rebuilding the camp and warned that other EU countries would accept around 13,000 immigrants. “Rebuilding Moria is not a solution, nor is it a solution to create other camps with similar conditions,” read a letter on Friday.
The letter is addressed to the responsible EU commissioners and to the German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer as representative of the German Presidency of the Council of the EU. For people in the destroyed countryside, sustainable solutions would have to be accepted by other EU countries, MEPs from various parliamentary groups write.
See image gallery
Photo gallery: Fire disaster in a refugee camp: the extent of the destruction
Image: (AFP)
According to his own statements, the letter was initiated by the Green Group’s immigration policy spokesman, Erik Marquardt. “You have to take care of people humanely and on short notice,” he said. Aid organizations and experts would have warned of such a catastrophe for years.
Parliamentarians are now also calling for Greece to be provided with corona tests for migrants and locals, as well as medical personnel and equipment.
The majority, more than 60, of the 159 signatories to the charter belong to the Greens in the European Parliament. The letter was also signed by Social Democrats, Leftists, and some Christian Democrats. There are also three unaffiliated members and one member of the right-wing group EKR.
