Rome - The first asylum seekers to benefit from an EU redistribution scheme are due on Friday to be flown from Italy to Sweden, under a process aimed at relieving the countries most affected by the bloc’s migration crisis.
The European Union is experiencing its largest influx of migrants and asylum seekers since World War II, with many coming from war-torn countries such as Syria and entitled to international protection.
The arrivals also include Eritrean nationals, most of whom qualify for asylum in Europe due to the eastern African country’s repressive military government.
To help relieve Greece and Italy - the two countries where most people coming to Europe first set foot - member states decided last month to redistribute an overall 160 000 asylum seekers across the EU.
Under this scheme, around 16 Eritrean nationals are to depart on Friday from Rome’s Ciampino airport, according to the European Asylum Support Office.
European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud later spoke of “around 20 people,” adding that the figure was not yet finalised.
Their asylum claims will be processed in Sweden.
The country was one of the first to pledge spots for asylum seekers under the EU scheme, Bertaud said.
“This is a historic day for Europe,” EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Thursday.
“The number is not big but … it’s a good start,” he told journalists in Luxembourg, where EU ministers were holding migration talks.
The commissioner is due to meet the group of Eritreans ahead of their departure from Rome, together with Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.
The officials will later travel to the Italian island outpost of Lampedusa to visit a so-called “hotspot,” a beefed-up migrant reception centre designed to register and screen all incoming boat migrants.
As part of the redistribution scheme, the EU has asked Italy and Greece to improve their efforts to identify incoming sea migrants.
The idea is to let people with legitimate grounds for asylum stay in the EU, but to swiftly repatriate economic migrants.
The two countries have been accused of dragging their feet on establishing the hotspot centres.
Asselborn and Avramopoulos are due later Friday to travel to Athens for talks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and local authorities on the roll-out of hotspots in Greece.
The first relocation of asylum seekers from Greece is expected to take place within the next two weeks, Avramopoulos said.
As of Thursday, more than 580 000 people had reached southern Europe by sea this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
DPA