Belgium only settled 119 refugees coming from Greece and Italy in 12 months

Belgium only settled 119 refugees coming from Greece and Italy in 12 months
Belgium has had a low contribution to the pan-European migrant resettlement operation so far.

Belgium has only settled 119 refugees since it signed up to the European Resettlement Agreement exactly a year ago to the day. This anticipated that we would take in at least 3,693 individuals. The implementation of the agreement is taking effect very slowly across the whole of Europe.

The objective of the operation was to provide relief to the Greek and Italian borders, when there was a significant influx of refugees from coming from Syria.

In total, 93,586 asylum seekers had been spread across the entire EU.

Since that date, only 13,478 asylum places had been made available and only 4,741 individuals had been able to properly benefit from these resettlement measures.

In Belgium, 230 places were created and 119 are presently filled. Some countries have not taken in anyone, examples being Hungary, Poland and Austria.

The CD&V (Flemish Christian Democrat) deputy, Nahima Lanjri, considers that Belgium should apply the measure.

She says, “At the end of last year, some 500 individuals were knocking on the door of the Immigration and Asylum Office. This asylum crisis is behind us for now.”

She concludes, “With sensible organisation, we should have no problems filling these places and satisfying our obligations as part of the continent-wide distribution of migrants.”

The Brussels Times


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