Nitra, West Slovakia, Dec 5 (CTK) – Europe must help people in need in the current migrant crisis, but not at the cost of threatening its own security, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said in his speech at a congress of the Slovak government Smer-Social Democracy (Smer-SD) Saturday.
Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) also rejected the proposals for reducing the Schengen area.
“We must help those who really need help. At the same time, we must perceive security risks,” Sobotka said.
He noted that migration must be regulated at the external border of the Schengen area, while Europe had not been prepared for such immense transfers of migrants at ts outer border at all.
“I am convinced that no country can manage to cope with the migrant crisis alone. We need Europe to deal with the crisis. But in some areas, we need much stronger and more resolute Europe than that we have Saturday,” Sobotka said.
He also rejected a possible creation of a “mini-Schengen,” that is a reduction of the Schengen area from which Central European countries might be excluded.
“The proposals for diminishing Schengen that have emerged are absurd since according to them, the countries that actually observe its rules most consistently should be excluded from Schengen,” Sobotka said.
Mainly the countries that are to protect the external Schengen border in Southern Europe have failed to fulfil the task, he added.
Slovak PM and Smer-SD chairman Robert Fico said in his speech that European policy in connection with the refugee crisis was a complete fiasco.
“Hundreds of thousands of migrants have illegally entered Europe, mainly for economic reasons. We must focus on the stabilisation of the countries such as Syria from which the highest number of migrants come. We must protect the Schengen border consistently,” Fico said.
Fico called the mandatory refugee quotas a false solidarity in the migrant crisis. Bratislava filed a legal complaint with the European Court of Justice against the decision on the quotas this week.
The EU interior ministers approved by a majority of votes the relocation of 120,000 refugees at their meeting in Brussels in September.
“The safety of the citizens of the Slovak Republic is the government´s priority. All other things are taken into consideration only afterwards,” Fico said.
Hungary, too, challenged the quotas in court. The Czech Republic, which also voted against the introduction of the quotas for redistribution of refugees across the EU, does not intend to take legal steps against the decision.
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