Jean Asselborn

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has asked EU interior ministers to consider ways to set up facilities in western Balkans states to screen some of the tens of thousands of asylum seekers who enter Greece and head north, mostly to Germany, Reuters reported.

Greece on Nov 4 carried out the first relocation of asylum seekers from its territory to Luxembourg, part of an EU-approved plan to ease the burden on border nations inundated by this year's influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.

A bevy of EU officials are in Athens on Wednesday for the departure of the first relocated refugees from Greece.

On Wednesday, November 4, Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn will travel to Greece.

The first relocation of refugees from Greece to another European Union country will take place on Wednesday morning.

President of Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos stressed that cooperation for addressing the humanitarian crisis of war refugees should by no means cause discounts or concessions in terms of the sovereignty of the member states, sending in that way a clear message to European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos will have a series of meetings with Turkey’s political leadership within the framework of European consultations with Ankara on the issue of refugees.

Avramopoulos will address an international forum on migration in Istanbul today.

A small group of Eritreans left Italy for Sweden on Oct. 9, the first contingent of asylum seekers to be relocated under a much-contested European Union scheme to ease the burden of the migration crisis on frontline countries.

European Union nations agreed on Oct. 8 to speed up the deportation of failed asylum seekers as they took a harder line toward tackling the bloc's worst migration crisis since World War II.

On Friday 9 October, Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn will travel to Italy accompanied by Interior Minister Angelino Alfano for a concrete demonstration of the roll out of the European Union’s comprehensive response to the refugee crisis.