UN calls on EU to resettle more refugees

The European Union's current relocation scheme for refugees is "not enough" to address the scope of the crisis, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said the current EU scheme to take in 160,000 refugees over the next two years had to be broadened and "more legal opportunities" had to be provided.

"You cannot have a technocratic approach to relocation," he told a news conference in Athens. "Without a human approach to relocation, this process could fail."

About 558,000 refugees or economic migrants have entered Europe this year, four-fifths of whom paid to be smuggled by sea to Greece from Turkey. 

Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said that "doesn't make sense" when they could have a legal alternative.

"We need to increase substantially the forms of people being able to come to Europe legally," he said.

Guterres had just completed a three-day visit to Greece, where he visited registration camps in Athens and on the island of Lesbos, one of the main landing points for migrants fleeing war and misery in the Middle East, East Africa and Asia across the Aegean Sea from Turkey.

Dozens have died in the perilous crossing in flimsy boats in the past month alone.

The International Organization for Migration said Friday that there had been a sharp increase in the number of migrants arriving in Greece, to some 7,000 a day, up from 4,500 per day at the end of September.

Only Syrians, Iraqis and Eritreans are currently eligible for resettlement under the EU relocation program. Afghans, whose country is also in conflict, are excluded.

Guterres said Monday the scheme remained vulnerable to "ethnic or religious discrimination," with Slovakia and Cyprus already declaring themselves a preference for Christian refugees.

Such statements "can only support the propaganda of IS [the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant] or other groups," the former Portuguese prime minister warned.

Guterres said what was needed was "a mechanism that is humane, that is based on dialogue, that is based on persuasion. That is not yet in place," he said.

"You cannot just look into people and say, 'you go to Germany, you go to Sweden, you go to Romania, you go to Portugal, you go to Spain' without having a process of information of taking into account the interests, for instance family, links, preferences," he added.

Brussels is now taking a tougher stance by tightening border controls and reducing incentives for people to come to the continent.

Registration hotspots in Greece and Italy, agreed by EU leaders at a summit last month, are aimed at separating those whom officials consider refugees and those whom they deem economic migrants at their first entry point into the bloc.

In September, the EU adopted a mandatory refugee quota system that would more equitably distribute refugees across countries, but four nations — the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary — have so far refused to comply with the provisions set forth in the resettlement scheme.

Al Jazeera and wire services