The EU has rejected Britain’s demand for a post-Brexit migration agreement that would allow it to return asylum seekers to European countries, The Guardian daily reported Thursday.
“UK’S PLAN IS VERY UNBALANCED”
The system allows countries to return refugees and migrants to the EU country from where they came, and is the basis of the current EU asylum system.
The Guardian reported that the EU rejected extending the system outside the EU, which the UK would be post-Brexit. The UK offered the same system vice versa, so that they would have to accept migrants who landed in the EU from the UK, except those who arrive by airplane.
The EU said the plan was “very unbalanced,” as southern Europe takes in 10 times more refugees by sea.
An EU diplomat was quoted by The Guardian as saying: “The assessment is that this is very much picking and choosing aspects of the current EU system.” “The proposal, from the EU perspective, isn’t very operational and doesn’t bring a lot of added value,” the diplomat added.
The UK has complained about their ability to return migrants to the EU, but the criticism carries little weight within the bloc, as the UK is geographically far from the epicenter of the crisis and receives relatively few asylum applications.