Prague, July 15 (CTK) – Czechs will oppose the redistribution of migrants within the EU if it does have not a say in the supervision of the choice of the refugees that are to be moved from Italy and Greece to the Czech Republic, Tomas Haisman, director of the Interior Ministry asylum and migration policy section, told journalists yesterday.
He said he did not expect an agreement on the exact number of the refugees destined for redistribution to be concluded soon.
Last week, the Czech government agreed to accept 1,500 refugees by 2017.
“It does not make sense to discuss anything before there is an agreement on the relocation numbers and an agreement on the relocation conditions,” Haisman said.
“We are ready to work on it as of September, but we will not elaborate before there are finished agreements now lying on a table in Brussels,” he added.
He said he did not expect the final agreements to be reached by the interior ministers who were scheduled to meet in Brussels on July 20.
Along with the definition of exact figures, the Czech Republic also wants to have clear rules of the process, Haisman said.
“We have a single interest. We only want to relocate people from the countries in which we will be able to send our own people,” he added.
He said EU members should supervise the execution of the asylum and immigration procedures in Italy and Greece.
“If this is not linked, the Czech Republic will be against the relocation,” Haisman said.
In the two years to come, EU countries are to redistribute roughly 40,000 refugees from Italy and Greece. They should also accept 20,000 displaced people now staying in the refugee camps outside Europe.
Earlier yesterday, Amnesty International passed a petition to Haisman. Over half a million Europeans asked their leaders to deal with the situation of the refugees and migrants on the European borders rapidly.
The petition, also signed by about 1,500 Czechs, demands that European politicians should ensure access to the proceedings on international protection to the refugees who will get into Europe and to end the cooperation limiting migration flows to the EU with the third countries with a low level of human rights protection.
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