Brussels, March 17 (CTK correspondent) – The Czech Republic wants to check migrants to be taken over from Greece and Italy to see whether they might pose a security risk, Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said on arrival at the current EU summit yesterday.
He said he will not agree with any summit conclusions that would set the pace of taking over the migrants by individual countries.
The Czech Republic has as yet offered to take over 20 migrants from Greece and ten from Italy.
“We will have our own pace. I consider the process of relocation something that must be fully controlled by individual governments. We will act so as to sufficiently check the people. Security checks are a key, fundamental and primary condition of Czech participation in any relocation,” Sobotka said.
“Only after the people are sufficiently checked from the security point of view, they can be granted international protection or asylum in the Czech Republic within the project,” Sobotka said.
He said he is convinced that the taking over of migrants will only proceed within the framework of the agreed-on mechanism of the redistribution of 160,000 refugees among the member countries.
“The quotas cannot be exceeded because the Czech Republic will not agree with this and I do not think that anyone in Europe would now want to outvote anyone on the issue. I believe that the previous experience was sufficient,” Sobotka said.
He referred to last year’ s decision on the redistribution of migrants that the EU interior ministers approved despite the disagreement of some EU countries, including the Czech Republic.
Sobotka supported the approval of an agreement between the EU and Turkey on returning the migrants who illegally step on the territory of the EU and on accepting the Syrians who fled to Turkey from war.
“At the moment that migration in the area of the Western Balkans is stopped, refugees accumulate in Greece. We need that the Turks start taking the migrants back from Greece to Turkey. This should be the result of our negotiations, we must find necessary compromises in this respect. I hope that individual countries will find an overall agreement that would make it possible to stem the migrant stream,” Sobotka said.
Sobotka said Athens must create sufficient administrative capacities if the migrants are to be returned from Greece to Turkey. He said he is rather sceptical in this respect, however.
“It is one of the biggest question marks with which I am arriving at yesterday’s negotiations of the European Council,” Sobotka said.
He said Greece’s ability to fulfil the parameters of the agreement, which sole can quickly tackle the issue, will require strong supervision by the European Commission and Greece’s intensive cooperation with the EU border agency Frontex if Athens is to fulfill its commitments.
