Human migration

A plan is under way to relocate at least 1,600 unaccompanied minors from Greek refugee camps to several European Unon countries, European Commission spokesman Jahnz Adalbert has said.

The relocation was decided on March 6 but has been delayed by the spread of the coronavirus. 

In 2018, around 672 300 persons acquired citizenship of one of the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU), down from 700 600 in 2017 and 843 900 in 2016.

Bulgaria closes its borders until April 17. The measure applies to all non-European citizens or arrivals from the following EU Member States and Schengen countries: Italy, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The United States has refused to issue entry visas for 9.75% of all applications submitted by Bulgarians in 2019, according to the European Commission. Statistics show a steady decline in refusals - from 17.3% in 2015, 16.9% in 2016, 14.97% in 2017 and 11.32% in 2018, BNR reported.

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Yet even in the midst of the pandemic, the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban has warned of a crisis of mass migration — despite the fact that the country's frontiers have largely been sealed to migrants and refugees since 2016.

Citizens look for only one thing when they find themselves facing an unknown, unexpected and dangerous threat: leadership. They want to feel confident that the person who is in charge understands the gravity of the situation, knows what to do to handle it and, most importantly, shares their anxiety. The Greek prime minister did this and more with his address to the nation last week.

A group of European Union countries has agreed to take in at least 1,600 migrant children in Greece traveling without their parents, with the first unaccompanied minors likely to find homes in Luxembourg as soon as next week, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said Friday.

After Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said that Croatia was ready to take in some child refugees trapped in refugee camps on Greek islands, hostile comments on social networks condemned the idea, some claiming that parents and wider relatives would then accompany the children - some of whom might be extremists.

European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson on Thursday said that she expects a revised framework for migration and asylum replacing the controversial Dublin Regulation will be ready after Easter.

The Greek government dismissed on Wednesday a report in The New York Times newspaper that it was holding illegal migrants who cross the border from Turkey at a secret "black site" where they are denied access to lawyers and cannot file asylum claims.