Brussels, Sep 6 (EFE).– The European Commission this week will ask Spain to accept about 15,000 refugees who entered Europe via Hungary, Italy and Greece, some 12.44 percent of the 120,000 people whom it is proposing to distribute for settlement among the member states, community sources told EFE.

This new group is more than three times larger than what Brussels had asked Spain to accept in May, when it requested that Madrid take in 4,288 refugees of the 40,000 who were to be divided among the 28 European member states, or 10.72 percent of the then-total.

Spain eventually offered in July to only accept 1,300 refugees over the next two years, less than a third of the number had been requested by the Commission, although it did not rule out increasing that figure in December.

The worsening of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and the inclusion of Hungary among the countries that will benefit from the measures to alleviate the crisis are the main reasons that an allotment increase has been called for.

“We’re using the same distribution key that was in the proposal for Italy and Greece, but evidently, since the new proposal also includes Hungary, the figures for all the other member states will rise,” the sources said.

Nevertheless, they said that “the figures for Spain continue to be half of what France and Germany will have to accept.”

The EC in May proposed a temporary system of obligatory distribution of refugees for the 40,000 people who had arrived in Italy and Greece since April 15, a system based on four criteria – population, GDP, unemployment and previous efforts to take in foreigners – according to which it was concluded that Spain could accept 10.72 percent of the total.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy came out forcefully against the so-called “obligatory quotas,” calling the criteria used in determining the allotment of refugees unfair because they did not take sufficient account of Spain’s high level of unemployment or the number of refugees the country had already taken in.

Brussels decided to maintain the criteria for the earlier proposal although it did slightly modify the method whereby earlier efforts to take in refugees by member states were factored in, community officials said. EFE