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.

NEW YORK (AP) — Vanity Fair is parting ways with West Coast editor Olivia Nuzzi amid ongoing controversy over her relationship with profile subject Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while she was the Washington correspondent for New York magazine.

A joint statement Friday from the magazine and Nuzzi said that they “have mutually agreed, in the best interest of the magazine, to let her contract expire at the end of the year.” She had been hired as its West Coast editor in September.

Nuzzi, 32, had been a star reporter for New York magazine known for colorful political profiles until the fall of 2024, when it was revealed she had an intense personal relationship with Kennedy, a presidential candidate at the time she wrote about him and now head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Nuzzi was fired by New York for not disclosing her relationship.

She reflected on their relationship and the fallout from it in the memoir “American Canto,” which refers to Kennedy as “The Politician” and ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza as “the man I did not marry.” It was excerpted in Vanity Fair but competed for attention with a series of Substack posts by Lizza that contained embarrassing allegations.

Their feud quickly gripped media insiders as Lizza alleged that Nuzzi had an affair with another profile subject and had given Kennedy political advice, both considered off limits for journalists. Lizza even posted salacious, cringeworthy text messages from Kennedy to Nuzzi that he had intercepted.

Nuzzi denounced her ex-fiance’s posts, in a Substack interview with Emily Sundberg, as “fiction-slash-revenge porn.”

Friday’s announcement came only days after the publication of “American Canto,” disdained by critics and apparently of little interest to the reading public. The book ranked just 6,094 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list as of Friday afternoon.

Critics were harsh: “A tell-all memoir? Ha. This is a tell-nothing memoir,” wrote Helen Lewis in The Atlantic.

Through a miserable week, Nuzzi posted a humorous Substack column of “Signs Your Book Rollout Has Gone Awry.”

Among them: “Monica Lewinsky reaches out to check on your mental health.”

A Canadian politician who claimed a voicemail she allegedly left a potential mayoral candidate last summer was artificial intelligence has been arrested and charged with making threats.

Ontario Councilor Corinna Traill was arrested on Wednesday and charged with two counts of uttering threats, the Peterborough Police Service in Ontario said.

In September, former mayoral candidate Tom Dingwall wrote on his Facebook that in August Traill left him a voicemail, telling him not to run for mayor so a friend of hers could run unencumbered.

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“Miss Traill made it clear that if I did not, she would come to my home, kill me, and sexually assault my wife, then sexually assault her again,” he alleged.

He called for Traill to step down, adding, “To be clear, no elected official, paid to represent us, should utilize intimidation or threats to dissuade anyone from pursuing elected office or engaging in public service, especially to the benefit of their friend.”

In her own statement posted to Facebook in September, Traill denied having sent the voicemail.

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“I want to state clearly and unequivocally: I did not create this message,” she wrote. “I have been advised that artificial intelligence technology was involved. Portions of the voicemail were my voice, but other parts were artificially generated.”

She wrote at the time that her team was trying to figure out who created the message.

“For more than a decade I have worked to represent the best interests of our community, advocate for our residents, and ensure that local decision-making reflects the values and priorities of the people I serve,” she added. “That dedication will not waver in light of these circumstances.”

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Traill has been released from jail on her own recognizance and is expected to next be in court in January, the police department said.  

Fox News Digital has reached out to Traill for comment.