EU agrees plan to share care of Mediterranean migrants

EUROPEAN Union leaders have agreed to the relocation of 40,000 people seeking asylum who have arrived in Greece and Italy. A deal was agreed upon at the on-going EU summit in the early hours of this morning (June 26) to share responsibility for housing people who have crossed the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East.
A further 20,000 people currently in refugee camps outside the EU will also be relocated to Europe, according to the agreement.
The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said the deal was an example of the rest of the EU showing “solidarity with frontline countries.” The UK, however, has chosen not to participate in the voluntary plan, as have a number of Eastern European countries who argued that they lack the resources to provide care for the refugees. Hungary and Bulgaria, where migrants have arrived in significant numbers across land, have been exempted from the plan.
So far in 2015, 63,000 people have been counted arriving in Greece across the Mediterranean in packed, barely seaworthy crafts, and 62,000 have landed on Italian territory. Thousands have died attempting the crossing.