EU ministers fail to agree to relocate 40,000 refugees

 European Union (EU) ministers on Monday failed to agree on a plan to relocate 40,000 refugees in Italy and Greece.

"I'm disappointed, we have almost reached the goal," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for home affairs, following the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.

"But we still took an important step forward," said Avramopoulos, adding EU member states decided at the meeting to take on more than 32,000 asylum seekers in the next two years.

The provisional figures of 32,256 persons to be relocated showed that Germany pledged to take in 10,500 asylum seekers, at the top of the list.

About 150,000 migrants have reached Europe by sea so far this year, most of them arriving in Italy and Greece, according to a recent report by the International Organization for Migration.

On June 25 this year, the European Council agreed to the relocation of 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece. All EU member states were asked to participate in this relocation effort. It was hoped that the European ministers would agree on the distribution of the refugees by consensus before the end of July.