World
EU members seek fewer ‘Solidarity Pool’ relocations of asylum seekers
Relocations of asylum seekers across the EU from countries under the most pressure from migration are set to be fewer than previously expected in 2026.
At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, the 27 EU Home Affairs Ministers are set to discuss the size of the “solidarity pool”, a mechanism to determine the total number of asylum seekers to be relocated the following year and the amount each country should allocate, or to compensate for by paying.
The European Commission proposed to relocate a certain number of asylum seekers from four countries considered “under migratory pressure”: Spain, Italy, Greece, and Cyprus.
The details of the proposal are classified, but according to sources, the pool amounts to 30,000 individuals. However, EU member states are expected to try and reduce this number, as national governments are not keen either to take more migrants in or to pay out compensation to other states for doing so.
“It will be less than 30,000”
According to EU rules, countries labelled as “under migratory pressure” should benefit the following year from the mandatory solidarity of other EU member states, who will either relocate asylum seekers to their own territory or provide financial contribution to those under the most pressure.
It falls to the European Commission to propose the size of this solidarity mechanism, with a legal minimum of 30,000 relocations and €600 million in financial contributions. Member states can then decide which way they want to contribute.
According to a EU source who saw the classified document, the Commission chose the highest possible minimum level of relocations.
In practice, this would mean 30,000 asylum seekers would be relocated from the four southern EU member states to the other 23, distributed in different numbers. They will be relocated according to quotas based on the states’ populations and GDP.
According to the person who saw the document, in the Commission proposal, the shares are expressed as percentages, not real numbers, with Germany taking the largest share. Some 42 per cent of the relocations proposed are to cover people rescued at sea and disembarked in one of the four countries under pressure.
However, member states are keen to reduce this overall number, arguing that the first solidarity cycle should be shortened, as the new migration rules will enter into force only in June 2026.
“States want to adapt the size,” one diplomat said. “It will be lower than what the Commission proposed.”
Despite this reduction not being explicitly provided for in the law, the Commission seems open to the possibility for next year.
“The Commission’s proposal for the annual solidarity pool covers a full year, but the reduced period of implementation is an element that the Council may consider in the process leading up to adoption of the solidarity pool,” a Commission spokesperson said during a press briefing on Friday.
Member states say no
Besides the possible reduction in the pool’s size, the number of member states contributing could also shrink.
According to the Commission’s proposal, another group of countries classified as “facing a significant migratory situation” could ask for a total or partial exemption from their quotas, which must be approved by other member states.
Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Croatia, Austria, and Poland have this option, and most of them have requested the exemption, several EU sources told Euronews.
In the case of Poland, the request was announced by Prime Minister Donald Tusk a few hours after the proposal.
“Poland will not be accepting migrants under the Migration Pact. Nor will we pay for it,” he wrote on X.
Any exemption will need to be approved by EU ministers through a qualified majority. This means that 15 out of 27 member states, representing at least 65% of the total EU population, have to support it.
Any exempted country’s share of relocations and financial contribution is not reassigned to other states, meaning that countries “under migratory pressure” will receive less help in the overall package.
“Exemptions and reductions should be as low as possible and truly motivated,” one diplomat said, suggesting this would be a particularly contentious point at the meeting.
No exemption or reduction can be granted to Hungary, for instance, despite Prime Minister Viktor Orbán insisting he will not apply the rules.
According to sources familiar with the matter, most of the EU countries would rather pay a financial contribution, which amounts to €20,000 per person not relocated, than host migrants. Some, like Germany or Sweden, would probably profit from the “responsibility offset”, a mechanism foreseen by the law which could reduce even more the effective relocations.
Several member states in Central and Northern Europe are currently hosting people who should have asked for asylum in their first country of arrival, and have instead irregularly moved through the EU (the so-called “secondary movements”).
According to the offset mechanism, any country could deduct these people from its solidarity quota, instead of sending them back to frontline countries, which has proved very complicated up to now.
“Italy and Greece have not been accepting transfers under the previous system. So this mechanism will be a concrete opportunity”, a diplomat said.
Shops and schools shut in northern Israel as residents protested a 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon that took effect on April 16, saying “nothing was achieved”. Israeli officials say operations may continue, with forces still deployed inside southern Lebanon.
Published On 19 Apr 2026
World
Pope Leo says remarks about world being ‘ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ were not aimed at Trump: report
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Pope Leo XIV said Saturday that remarks he made this week in which he said the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not directed at President Donald Trump, a report said.
The pope, speaking onboard a flight to Angola during his 10-day tour of Africa, said reporting about his comments “has not been accurate in all its aspects” and his speech “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting,” according to Reuters.
The news outlet cited the pope as saying his comments were not aimed at Trump.
“As it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all,” the pope reportedly said.
’60 MINUTES’ ACCUSED OF USING LEFT-LEANING CARDINALS TO BAIT TRUMP INTO FEUD WITH VATICAN
Pope Leo XIV answers journalists’ questions during his flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon, to Luanda, Angola, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP)
Vice President JD Vance later took to X to thank the pope for clearing the record.
“While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict — and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen — the reality is often much more complicated,” Vance wrote. “Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day.
“The President — and the entire administration — work to apply those moral principles in a messy world,” he continued. “He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”
The vice president’s comments came days after he told Fox News’ Bret Baier on “Special Report” that it would be best for the Vatican to “stick to matters of morality.”
“Let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said Tuesday.
Trump last Sunday accused Pope Leo XIV of being “terrible” on foreign policy after the pontiff criticized the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
“He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
POPE LEO SLAMS THOSE WHO ‘MANIPULATE RELIGION’ FOR MILITARY OR POLITICAL GAIN, TRUMP RESPONDS
Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump (Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a speech in Cameroon on Thursday, the pope said, “We must make a decisive change of course — a true conversion — that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.
Pope Leo XIV speaks as he meets with the community of Bamenda at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda on the fourth day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa April 16, 2026. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
Bulgarians headed to the polls Sunday for the eighth time in five years, with anti-corruption candidate and former president Rumen Radev’s bloc tipped to win.
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The European Union’s poorest member has been through a spate of governments since 2021, when large anti-graft rallies brought an end to the conservative government of long-time leader Boyko Borissov.
Eurostat data shows Bulgaria consistently ranks last in the EU by GDP per capita. In 2025, Bulgaria (along with Greece) was at 68% of the EU average.
Radev, who has advocated for renewing ties with Russia and opposes military aid to Ukraine, was president for nine years in the Balkan nation of 6.5 million people.
He stepped down in January to lead newly formed centre-left grouping Progressive Bulgaria, with opinion polls before Sunday’s vote suggesting the bloc could gain 35% of the vote.
The former air force general has said he wants to rid the country of its “oligarchic governance model”, and backed anti-corruption protests in late 2025 that brought down the latest conservative-backed government.
“I’m voting for change,” Decho Kostadinov, 57, told reporters after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital, Sofia, adding corrupt politicians “should leave — they should take whatever they’ve stolen and get out of Bulgaria”.
Polls are forecasting a surge in voter participation, with more than 3.3 million Bulgarians expected to cast ballots according to the Bulgarian News Agency.
Voting will close at 1700 GMT, with exit polls expected immediately afterwards. Preliminary results are expected on Monday.
‘Preserve what we have’
Borissov’s pro-European GERB party is likely to come second, according to opinion polls, with around 20%, ahead of the liberal PP-DB.
“I’m voting to preserve what we have. We are a democratic country, we live well,” said Elena, an accountant of about 60, who did not give her full name, after casting her vote in Sofia.
Front-runner Radev has slammed the EU’s green energy policy, which he considers naive “in a world without rules”.
He also opposes any Bulgarian efforts to send arms to help Ukraine fight back Russia’s 2022 invasion, though he has said he would not use his country’s veto to block Brussels’ decisions.
Pushing for renewed ties with Russia, Radev denounced a 10-year defence agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine signed last month – drawing fresh accusations from opponents of being too soft on Moscow.
The ex-president also stoked outrage online for screening images at his final campaign rally of his meetings with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“We need to close ranks,” he told around 10,000 cheering supporters at the rally, presenting his party as a non-corrupt “alternative to the perverse cartel of old-style parties”.
Borissov, who headed the country virtually uninterrupted for close to a decade, has dismissed suggestions that Radev brings something “new”.
At a rally of his party earlier this week, he insisted GERB had “fulfilled the dreams of the 1990s” with such achievements as the country joining the eurozone this year.
‘No one to vote for’
Radev is aiming for an absolute majority in the 240-seat parliament.
A lack of trust in politics has affected voter turnout, which slumped to 39% in the last election in 2024.
But with Radev rallying voters, high turnout is expected this time, according to analyst Boryana Dimitrova from the Alpha Research polling institute.
Miglena Boyadjieva, a taxi driver of about 55, said she always votes, but the “problem is that there is no one to vote for”.
“You vote for one person and get others. The system has to change,” she told reporters.
Political parties have called on Bulgarians to show up for the polls, also to curb the impact of vote buying.
In recent weeks, police have seized more than one million euros in raids against vote buying in stepped-up operations.
They have also detained hundreds of people, including local councillors and mayors.
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