European court upholds refugee relocations

The European Court of Justice on Wednesday dismissed efforts by Hungary and Slovakia to receive exemptions from the European Union’s refugee relocation program. A majority of EU states in 2015 agreed to relocate some 120,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over two years, but only 24,000 people have been moved. Hungary and Poland rejected the plan, while Slovakia only accepted a handful of its allotment. The court upheld the 2015 agreement between member states, stating, “The mechanism actually contributes to enabling Greece and Italy to deal with the impact of the 2015 migration crisis and is proportionate.” The EU has taken in more than 1.7 million migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, and the Continent experienced a mass influx in 2015. Advocacy group Amnesty International lauded the ruling, saying Hungary and Slovakia had been trying to turn into “refugee-free zones.”