The European Commission officially announced a set of concrete measures to handle the refugee crisis, on Wednesday, September 9.

The proposed measures include mandatory refugee quotas to relocate about 120,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa that are currently in Italy, Greece, and Hungary, to other EU member states. These refugees should be relocated over a two-year period.

According to the allotted quotas, Romania should take in 4,646 refugees, or 3.87% of the total number, the European Commission’s documents reveal. These refugees come in addition to the 1,785 refugees that Romania agreed to take in in May this year, which raises the total to 6,351.

The Romanian officials said in the past few days that they were against mandatory refugee quotas and preferred voluntary quotas. Both president Klaus Iohannis and Prime Minister Victor Ponta said that Romania could only take in some 1,700 refugees and no more.

Germany and France got the biggest mandatory refugee quotas, according to the European Commission document. Germany would take in 26% of the total, and France - some 20%. Spain (12.5%), Poland (7.7%), and the Netherlands (6%) are the only other countries that get higher quotas than Romania.

The European Commission also proposed the establishing of a permanent relocation mechanism, based on several parameters, the most important of which are the total population (40%) and the GDP (40%).

The EU member states’ leaders will discuss the proposals in an extraordinary Home Affairs Council on migration on 14 September. Most Eastern European EU members oppose this mandatory quota system. On the other side is Germany, EU’s strongest economy, which is also the primary target for asylum seekers. The European Commission's proposals are available here.

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editor@romania-insider.com