BRUSSELS, September 11. /TASS/. Serious disagreements among EU countries on the problems of migrants and the quotas for their accommodation have raised the idea of "paying compensation" for the refusal to accept them, Russia’s permanent representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told TASS in an interview on Friday.
"Different ideas have begun to appear now, such as payment of compensation. If you don’t want to accept migrants - pay. The sum is quite modest - €7.5 for each unaccepted refugee, but it’s per day!" - he said.
"All attempts to spread evenly among the EU states just 40,000 people of the half a million that have arrived to the EU by sea since the beginning of this year, have been unsuccessful. Each EU country acts based on its own understanding, which may cardinally change in a few days. One day they open the borders, another day closing them, first remove people from trains, then put them in buses," he said.
Chizhov recalled that even European Council President Donald Tusk has directly acknowledged the controversy and said that "a divide between the West and the East of the European Union" on the issue of migrants’ reception has emerged.
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Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and refugees fleeing their conflict-stricken home countries in the Middle East and North Africa are trying to get to the territory of the EU so as to seek refuge there. Many of them arrive via Turkey and the Balkan states and then stream to the EU member-states. Since the beginning of the year, more than 400,000 migrants have filed official requests for asylum in twenty-eight member-states of the EU, which stands in a marked contrast with the 280,000 requests filed in 2014.
The Hungarian authorities have taken a decision to begin construction of a 175 km-long barbed-wire fence on the border with Serbia. Earlier plans suggested construction works were to be over by October 31.
The migrant crisis has become number one priority for the EU countries, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament in his annual message regarding the state of affairs in the European Union earlier this week. "It is Europe today that represents a beacon of hope, a haven of stability in the eyes of women and men in the Middle East and in Africa. That is something to be proud of and not something to fear," said Juncker.