SPAIN'S refugee quota of 14,931 decided by the European Union would be the third-highest of the 22 countries which fall within the 'distribution pact', after Germany and France.
Germany will take 31,443 and France, 24,031.
Although the UK has announced it is willing to take 20,000 – more than Spain – along with Ireland and Denmark, the country has special dispensation which means it does not have to go along with justice or foreign affairs pacts affecting the rest of the Union.
At present, 54,000 refugees are currently held up in Hungary, another 50,400 in Greece and 15,600 in Italy, and the EU plan – spearheaded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French prime minister François Hollande – involves taking the weight off these three countries and distributing 120,000 people fleeing the wars in Syria and Iraq across 22 nations.
The quotas have been worked out based upon a percentage of the existing population, each country's GDP and its economic situation, including unemployment figures.
Spain's unemployment remains the second-lowest in the Eurozone at 22% after Greece's 25%, but to date, the Spanish government's asylum record is one of the poorest, along with that of the UK.
Britain rejects nearly 72% of all asylum claims; Spain sends back 80%.
Over a third of these are overturned on appeal, costing the taxpayer even more than if they had been accepted in the first place, the London Refugee Council and its Spanish counterpart, ACNUR, complain.
Poland will take the fourth-highest number of war refugees at 9,287, followed by The Netherlands at 7,214, Romania at 4,646, Belgium at 4,564 and Sweden at 4,469.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com