Brussels, June 6 (CTK correspondent) – The European Commission should take the Czech government’s statement that the country will not participate in the redistribution of refugees based on quotas as any other violation of EU rules, a high diplomat of the current Maltese EU presidency told reporters today.
Migration is one of the issues on the agenda of the Friday talks of the EU countries’ interior ministers in Luxembourg.
However, the Maltese presidency says the Czech decision is not likely to be debated at this meeting.
The position of the Maltese presidency is to encourage all member states to fulfil the approved decisions, the Maltese diplomat said.
He added that Italy and Greece still needed solidarity of other members and it cannot be ruled out that someone else would need it sooner or later.
The government agreed on Monday that the Czech Republic would not accept any further migrants from Italy and Greece based on the quotas for the redistribution of refugees, mainly from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, across the whole EU, also due to the worsened security situation. It said the system was not functioning.
The Czech Republic has taken only 12 refugees from Greece, although it ought to accept about 2,600 people by September according to the quotas.
Since May 2016, the Czechs have not offered resettlement to any refugee within the EU programme.
The two-year programme, which was approved despite the opposition of the Czech Republic and other Central European countries in September 2015, has not been very efficient. Only about 18,400 people were resettled within the programme as of May 12.
The EU itself admits that the total planned number of 120,000 people will not be resettled. One of the reasons is that not enough migrants in Italy and Greece meet the transfer conditions.
Yet the EU executive still calls on the member countries to accept at least the few thousands of migrants who meet the conditions, while the EC is more and more strongly warning the countries that ignore the programme of their stances’ consequences.
European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos clearly pointed out in May that the EC would not hesitate to launch legal proceedings against Hungary and Poland soon for not meeting the quotas. They have not accepted any migrants from Italy and Greece yet.
The EC may decide on the proceedings next week.
The commissioner also mentioned the Czech Republic in this respect. The EC called on Prague to quickly resume its accepting of migrants.
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