The European Commission has proposed a scheme to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers across the bloc using country-by-country quotas, and to compensate the nations who take people in.

The European Union on Wednesday proposed a scheme to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers who arrive in Italy and Greece across the bloc, amid a surge in arrivals this year. The EU said it would pay countries 6,000 euros ($6,500) for each person they took in. Alessandro Di Meo / ASSOCIATED PRESS An Italian coast guard rescue vessel approaches migrants on an inflatable dinghy, off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean Sea in April.

The EU has been scrambling to respond to a migration crisis this year, which has seen a rise in people from the Middle East and Africa crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe — and, by some measures, a rise in the numbers dying when boats capsize. The European Commission, the powerful EU body that manages the day-to-day running of the bloc and suggests new laws, made Wednesday's proposal. Around 75,500 people have made the Mediterranean crossing this year, a 50% increase on the same period last year, according to the U.N.'s refugee agency. Around 1,800 have died trying to make the crossing since January, according to the U.N., although it could not provide a comparison figure for this period last year. This year's death toll is 30 times higher than during the same months last year, the BBC reported in April, using data from the International Organisation for Migration.

The 40,000-person scheme would apply only to asylum seekers from Syria, which is in the grip of a four-year civil war, and Eritrea, one of the most oppressive countries in the world, the European Commission said in a statement. Relocation | emergency response mechanism proposed to assist #Italy & #Greece: http://t.co/kh82jEtePW #MigrationEU

This is because of a rule whereby only asylum seekers from countries with a 75% acceptance rate would be eligible for the scheme. Syria and Eritrea account for almost half of the migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, according the the U.N.'s refugee agency. Under the new proposals, the asylum seekers would be resettled across the bloc using quotas allocated to EU countries depending on factors like their population, economy, and unemployment rate. The boats contain a mix of asylum seekers fleeing violence and economic migrants seeking better livelihoods, and the vast majority of them land in Italy and Greece.

The quota proposal pits Germany, the bloc's most powerful country and a supporter of the scheme, against a host of European countries that oppose it. Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on May 19.

France and Spain have signaled that they would reject laws involving quotas, The Guardian reported earlier this month. The U.K., a staunch critic of quotas that it says will encourage more migrants to come to Europe, can opt out of the scheme, as can Ireland and Denmark. The European Commission's migration proposals must be signed off by EU states at a summit in June to become law, the Financial Times reported. Earlier this month, it also proposed a separate quota to take in 20,000 asylum seekers who have not yet made the Mediterranean crossing and resettle them across the EU, again using country-by-country quotas.