European Refugee Quota system

European Refugee Quota system:

During one of the seminars, we lightly touched on the topic of refugee quotas. This term has been recently frequently used mainly in Europe. It began when the ‘European refugee crisis’ which refers to increasing number of asylum seekers who came to Europe in 2015 seeking refuge. I recently realized that most of the phrases used to describe the asylum seekers and refugees are mostly negatively connotated, for instance, mentioned above word ‘crisis’. The most prominent media reporters in the last two years referred to this situation as an ‘emergency’ which needed to be ‘solved’. Most of these asylum seekers came from Western Asia, South Asia, and Africa and traveled through the Balkan stated to northern Europe. Some countries receive more refugees than others, for instance, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, and Hungary were amongst the major refugee-hosting countries in Europe. So in order to even out the distribution, the EU countries decided to employ quotas for each member state.

By mid-2017 about 22,400 people had been resettled through the quota systems. I am not completely in favor of this quota system. A lot of asylum seekers came to that European country for a reason and having them relocated to countries where they probably feel unwelcomed is not fair. These people might have chosen Germany for instance because they might have families or friends here but now would be relocated to the Czech Republic. There have been reports of some of these relocated asylum seekers fleeing back to the European country they were sent from. The countries hosting the majority of these asylum seekers are in favor of the quota system and the others are against it. The countries against the implementation of this quota would accept the asylum seekers if they believe they are ‘safe’ for the nation. So, I came across this list that 12 EU countries have developed individually: ‘safe country of origin list’. This wording infuriates me, the countries considered safe are the EU candidates and potential EU candidate countries, so asylum seekers from other countries are not safe? They get scrutinized for not belonging to a certain nationality? On the other hand, the applicants from these ‘safe countries’ need to have a very convincing justification for seeking asylum as their country is considered safer than the others.

The way the so-called ‘crisis’ has been and is being dealt with I consider it to be really inhumane, especially with media predominantly hyping the potential negative aspects of lives of these people. This makes me question if there is a ‘right’ way to deal with such situations?