European Union approves plan to relocate 120,000 refugees across Europe

European Union interior ministers meeting in Brussels Tuesday approved a plan to relocate 120,000 refugees across Europe amid heightened tensions amongst member nations over the crisis.

 

Some nations — including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia — voted against the plan, Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said on Twitter, according to Sky News.

 

“We will soon realize that the emperor has no clothes,” Chovanec said. “Common sense lost today.”

 

The Czech government earlier warned that any attempt to approve a relocation plan would backfire for the EU, and could end in “big ridicule” for its members and officials.

 

But a Twitter post from the Luxembourg mission to the European Union said the decision was adopted by a “large majority” of the EU’s 28 member states. Luxembourg currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and presided over Tuesday’s meeting of interior and justice ministers in Brussels, Belgium.

 

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said his country would take more than 30,000 people.

 

“We are doing this out of solidarity and responsibility, but also in our own interest,” he said. “At the moment, something like 50 percent of those who are arriving in Greece are coming to Germany. With a quota of 26 percent, fewer of this group would come.”

 

Read More: European Union approves plan to relocate 120,000 refugees across Europe | Fox News