Immigration to Europe

Spain said July 28 it had rescued more than 1,200 migrants from the sea in two days as the country's interior minister called for a European-wide solution to illegal immigration.

Switzerland has rejected a refugee relocation program proposed by the European Union to relieve the burden on frontier countries like Italy and Greece, local media reported on Sunday.

In 2016, the European Union has given citizenship to almost one million people, most of them Moroccans, followed by Albanians, Indians, Pakistanis and Turks, according to Eurostat data released on Monday. This pan-European trend, however, does not apply to Bulgaria, where nearly a third of the granted citizenships are given to Russians, Ukrainians and Turks.

European Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos has described as "unacceptable" the refusal by some European Union countries to take some of the weight off fellow member states by taking in asylum seekers.

Such a move would relieve countries such as Greece and Italy which continue to shoulder the burden of Europe's migration crisis, Avramopoulos told Agence France-Presse.

Bulgaria is among the countries of the European Union (EU) with the largest share of immigrants from third countries compared to the population and among those with the smallest share of people from EU countries. This shows data from the European Statistics Office Eurostat for 2015 on the occasion of the International Immigrants Day, which is celebrated on 18 December.

 French authorities evacuated hundreds of migrants from a wood on the northern coast near Calais on Tuesday over fears it could become a magnet for others hoping to head to Britain, The Local reported.

The European Commission on Thursday recommended the gradual resumption of the Dublin regulations, which state that migrants must seek asylum in the European Union member-state they first arrived in.

According to an article written today in the German newspaper Welt am Sontag, the German interior ministry wants to prevent migrants from reaching Europe’s Mediterranean coast by picking them up at sea and rerouting them to Africa.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that the EU must sign agreements on migrants with Egypt and Tunisia like the agreement already concluded with Turkey.

Merkel added that more funds should be spent on development in order to counteract effectively the main reasons causing migration.

At least five migrants, including three children, died Oct. 28 after four boats sank between Turkey and Greece, as rescue workers searched the sea for dozens more, the Greek Coast Guard has said.