Brussels, June 23 (CTK) – The Czech government will discuss how to increase the Czech aid to the Libyan coast guard in the next few days, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka told journalists after the two-day European Union summit on migration and other affairs in Brussels today.
Sobotka said he would talk about the aid to Libya with the relevant ministers of his government.
The Czech Republic is ready to provide higher financial and personnel assistance to countries hit by the migrant wave.
Sobotka said the financial aid would be used for the protection of the external border, on which the Czech concept of fighting illegal migration is based.
The EU summit acknowledged that the situation in the Central Mediterranean remains critical. Mostly economic migrants from Africa and other countries try to get to the EU, mainly Italy, via the Central Mediterranean and their number is higher than it was in the same period last year. The EU and its member states must renew control to avoid a worsened humanitarian crisis, the summit concluded.
Sobotka said the summit showed that the member states remain divided on the application of a permanent mechanism for the redistribution of asylum seekers around the EU in case of an emergency situation.
Estonia, which will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU from Malta in July, is to deal with the point of controversy.
“The only way to move forward during the Estonian presidency is to separate the quotas, which are unacceptable for Czechs and the whole Visegrad Group, from the rest of the reform,” Sobotka said.
kva/mr/rtj
