Prague, Jan 22 (CTK) – One cannot presume that the Czech government will renew the resettlement programme for Christian refugees from Iraq, Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (Social Democrats, CSSD) told Czech Television (CT) yesterday.
The programme started last January when the first refugees landed in the Czech Republic. In all, 89 of them came to it.
The government stopped it four months later because some of the refugees left for Germany and some back to their home country.
“I cannot see any reason for it now. Some of them are back at home, some in Germany,” Chovanec said.
“Even now, we are arguing with German authorities whether they should be returned here. Some of them have stayed and are being integrated here. I do not think the project should be continued,” Chovanec said.
He refused again the quotas under which the Czech Republic is to accept 2,691 refugees from the European Mediterranean countries, most hit by the migrant crisis, by the end of the year.
“We will never accept the quotas and we will never be within the system,” Chovanec said.
He criticised the current presidency of the EU by Malta that is likely to reopen the quotas.
Chovanec said the system in the country had already failed in the migrant crisis in 2009.
“This is absolute Utopia,” Chovanec said.
The quotas relate to the redistribution of 160,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece.
Chovanec said out of the European countries, none but Germany and Sweden were observing the quotas.
Twelve refugees on the basis of the quotas are in the Czech Republic.
Chovanec said further tries to resettle the migrants had failed because they did not undergo security checks.
“They never stay till the end, vanishing somewhere. At any rate, we will never let in anyone before the check is finished,” Chovanec said.
pv/dr
