(AP) — Bulgaria is rejecting signing bilateral deals with other European Union countries to readmit migrants who entered the EU through the Balkan country.
Backed by a vast majority of legislators across party lines, Parliament on Friday approved a resolution barring the government from signing readmission agreements and proposed reforms to the EU’s asylum rules.
Currently, migrants are supposed to be returned to the countries where they first entered the EU and applied for asylum, but such regulations have been rarely enforced.
Bulgaria, which has sealed off its border with Turkey with a barbed wire fence to prevent the country becoming the new gateway to Europe, is now calling for the closure of all external EU borders to migrants and for setting up refugee camps in Libya and Turkey.