Ylva Johansson, European Commission member responsible for home affairs, said that the European Union has committed to settling approximately 61 thousand refugees in member countries in the next two years.
“Since 2015, we have provided protection to 175,000 people through resettlement and humanitarian reception programmes,” Johansson said at a press conference during the United Nations Global Refugee Forum in Geneva on Thursday.
“I am pleased to announce that for 2024 and 2025, 14 member states have committed to resettle and accept more than 60,000 people, in fact almost 61,000, on humanitarian grounds, 31,000 of whom will be through the resettlement programs of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),” Johansson said. ” he added.
Saying that this generally represents a slight increase compared to previous years, Johansson did not disclose which 14 countries were in question.
Hungary refuses to be one of the countries where refugees are resettled.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ resettlement programs allow refugees who took refuge in the first country to resettle in another country that agrees to provide them with international protection and eventually permanent residence.
Stating that member countries have provided protection to approximately one million people in the last three years, Johansson emphasized that this means that “the EU currently hosts 20 percent of the world’s refugees.”
