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Despite dealing with ongoing political crisis at home, Brazil is negotiating an agreement with Germany to bring more Syrian refugees to the South American country, the Brazilian newspaper Estadao reported Thursday.
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Brazil has offered to share the responsibility of accepting Syrian refugees in exchange for funding from the European Union to help cover settlement and integration costs. While the negotiations are preliminary, Brazil is expecting to get more specific proposals from the EU soon, Estadao reported.
But no numbers of just how many refugees Brazil could welcome have been discussed yet. An agreement would focus on resettling some Syrian refugees with plans to travel to Germany, either from Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, or who are already en route in European countries.
“I love being in Brazil, I’m so happy here. I have friends + my teacher is the best." https://t.co/EVrkF0iqJG #Syria pic.twitter.com/kU9lhOWyOA
— UN Refugee Agency (@Refugees) March 28, 2016
Estadao reported that Brazil’s proposal was “well received” by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.
Brazil has already welcomed some 2,200 Syrian refugees since 2013, when the country introduced a program of special visas in the Middle East to assist refugees, mostly Syrians. The policy is scheduled to continue until 2017.
Some refugees have faced challenges including the language barrier and difficulty with employment, EFE reported.
Asylum applications to Brazil have spiked in recent years, though they still are dwarfed by levels in European countries at the heart of the refugee and migration crisis.
The talks come as the EU scrambles to find ways to calm the crisis and stem the flow of refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, across their borders. The recent EU deal with Turkey has been heavily criticized by for ramping up detention and return of refugees and migrants, while new arrivals to Greece continue to rise.
The refugee negotiations also come amid mounting political crisis in Brazil amid ongoing economic strife. The country’s largest political party, the PMDB, opted to definitively break its coalition with Dilma Rousseff’s ruling PT this week, increasing the likelihood that the impeachment attempt against the president will have enough support to move forward.
Opposition pressure is mounting on Rousseff, while the country remains divided over over impeachment with tens of thousands taking to the streets under the banner of defending democracy against a so-called coup attempt.
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