Cities across Spain have said they want to help form a network of places where residents can sign up to welcome some of the thousands of refugees desperately seeking safety in Europe.
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Barcelona’s initiative to join cities together in a network giving shelter to refugees has been met with an outpouring of support from local governments across Spain, with at least a dozen city councils saying they want to take part.
After Spain’s largest and capital city, Madrid, announced earlier this week that it would join Barcelona, Valencia, Pamplona, Córdoba, various cities on Mallorca, and many others have said they will follow suit.
The two left-wing mayors of Barcelona and Madrid, Ada Colau and Manuela Carmena, said they would meet on Friday to discuss plans for establishing the networks where residents could register to have refugees stay in their homes.
Barcelona city hall has set aside €200,000 in aid to the Service for Immigrants, Migrants and Refugees (Saier).
Hundreds of people have already contacted authorities in Barcelona to offer to provide shelter to asylum seekers.
Spain rejected the EU commission quota plan and said it will accept only 2,749 of the 5,849 refugees it was asked to re-home.
On Thursday, conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he had been “horrified” by images of a drowned toddler and called on a united effort by Europe to solve the Syria problem.
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