Estonia and Italy sign agreement over acceptance of refugees

  • 2015-10-04
  • Helen Wright, TALLINN

Estonia and Italy have signed an agreement this week outlining the terms of relocating refugees who have arrived in southern Europe and are seeking asylum. 
 
Estonian Interior Minister Hanno Pevkur and Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano met in Rome on Friday to sign the joint declaration.
 
It stresses the importance of finding a solution to the pressures of the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and to solving the root causes of the problems.
 
However it was also agreed that Estonia will have the option of turning away people who are a threat to ‘public order and security’ and the nations preference for taking in whole families or the most vulnerable, such as single mothers, children and orphans. 
 
Interior Minister Hanno Pevkur said: "The statement gives us an opportunity to help people who need protection and to steadily move forward with preparations for the relocation. 
 
“Both Estonia and Italy agree that this should take place as soon as possible.”
 
According to UN statistics, one in every 122 people is now either a refugee, an asylum-seeker abroad or internally displaced from their home country.
 
Last year there were 600,000 asylum seekers in Europe and more than 130,000 crossed the Mediterranean in the first six months of 2015. In the same time period last year 75,000 people were recorded crossing by UNHCR.
 
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves also touched upon the need for a solution to the refugee crisis when he spoke at the General Debate of the 70th United Nations General on Wednesday.
 
He called for a global initiative to help fight ISIL, who have caused thousands of people to flee their homelands in Iraq and Syria, which along with the conflict in Syria has created the worst refugee crisis since World War 2.
 
He said: “No country is immune from the threat that it [ISIL] poses. Stopping it, and other terrorist organisations, requires a global effort.
 
“Estonia supports the international coalition against ISIL. We believe that the UN and its Global Counter Terrorism Forum also have an important role to play.”