#RefugeesCrisis: New options for EU asylum seekers to be presented by the European Commission

The European Commission is due to unveil options for reforms the now untenable Dublin Regulation, to change how EU countries handle asylum claims following the recent migrant crisis.

The move is in part a reaction to the difficulties faced by Greece and Italy to cope with thousands arriving from the Middle East and Africa, while other countries have taken in hardly any refugees.

Under the current system for dealing with migrants and asylum-seekers, known as the Dublin Regulation, the migrant must ask for asylum in the first country he reaches. Moreover, countries have the power to return asylum seekers to the first EU state they entered for their claim to be dealt with there.

However several member states, most notably the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), Austria and the UK do not want to see wholesale changes to the system nor want to accept a quota system to redistribute the migrants who arrive in the EU.

Despite the aversion, the influx of more than a million people to Europe last year has made the flaws in the EU's asylum system obvious.The current arrangement has left Greece and Italy battling to cope with hundreds of thousands of people seeking protection. The Commission is thus working to address the flaws in the current Dublin Regulation.

The European Commission is likely to suggest either a modest change that preserves the current system but adds a 'fairness' provision so a country struggling to cope can get help.

A second, more radical option would be to scrap the existing rules and distribute refugees around Europe.

However, the UK and many eastern European countries have made clear they want to keep the system which allows them to return asylum seekers to the country where they entered the EU. It must be noted that anyway the UK cannot be forced to take asylum seekers as it has opt-outs from EU asylum policies.

Greece paused deportations of migrants to Turkey on Tuesday 5 April, a day after the first boats took back 202 people under a controversial EU plan to cut off a migrant route to Europe. Hundreds more are due to be removed later this week, but the migrants are arriving in Greece faster than they can be sent back.

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