Peter Sutherland says burden of migrant crisis should be shared

Former EU commissioner Peter Sutherland said he agrees with the EU proposal for refugee quotas and believes the burden of the migrant crisis should be shared among all European states.

Mr Sutherland, who is currently the special representative of the UN secretary general on migration, described the proposals as “holistic”, saying that it would provide for the “allocation of refugees around the EU in a fair and reasonable way”.

The proposal, which is due to be launched by the European Commission on Wednesday, involves creating migrant quotas for 28 countries of the European Union under a distribution system set by Brussels.

The quotas will be based on various criteria ranging from national wealth levels to unemployment rates.

Condoning the new initiative, Mr Sutherland said “I think this should be a voluntary sharing, not an imposed one. I don’t think the means exist to impose this by law.

“The fundamental issue here is saving people who are drowning in the Mediterranean...this is not about getting into battles about quotas when we are facing a humanitarian crisis”.

Noting that as a member of the EU, Ireland has a responsibility to share the burden of its member states, Mr Sutherland said "at the moment there are a small number of countries who are doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to refugees who are escaping persecution. We all have a duty to look after them," he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland on Monday.