EU surrenders, will not force countries to take migrants.

The EU will stop its disastrous forced migrant quota scheme and will switch to a voluntary one. The EU Commission has proposed a new two-year programme to bring at least 50,000 asylum seekers into Europe instead of the old one which it had been pursuing which called for the forced relocation of 170,000 migrants in EU countries. The commission said that it had set aside 500 million euros ($590m) to support the resettlement effort. Member states will be free to participate in the scheme on a voluntary basis and won't be forced by the EU to accpet migrants into their countries any longer. The issue has soured relations in the 28-country European Union and has caused a huge crisis and a rift between western and eastern European countries. Several eastern and central European states such as Austria, Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland balked at the mandatory resettlement scheme, and outright refused to participate in it, and a legal challenge against it was brought by Poland and Hungary which was rejected by the European Court of Justice earlier this month. The EU has went as far as to open legal proceedings against these countries and to threaten them with economic fines and sanctions if they refused the forced migrant relocations. So this policy shift from a forced relocation scheme to voluntary one is nothing but a huge defeat for the EU, and a stunning success for eastern European countries, who stood their ground and refused to give in to the EU's threats and authoritarian policies.