Prague, Jan 23 (CTK) – The influx of migrants will not abate and the EU will have to resort to massive deportations, Czech President Milos Zeman said in an interview for Friday´s issue of daily Pravo, in which he also said it is a mistake that the government agrees with 800 million crowns for Turkey.
He repeated his opinion that a solution to the migrant crisis solely rests in the effective protection of the EU outer border, or the creation of a border guard.
However, the proposal to build a border guard with 1500 men, and possibly also women, is comic. But if every EU country supplied 1000 people, which is not too many, the EU border guard would have 28,000 men, which is a reasonable force, Zeman said.
He said he objects to that the building of the border guard is to be discussed over a period of six months, during which another half a million or so new illegal migrants will come to Europe.
Zeman said he intentionally speaks about illegal migrants, because according to the Dublin regulations, an immigrant is to seek asylum or legal protection in the first safe country, which happens neither in Italy nor in Greece.
Asked whether he still insists on that the migrant wave is directed by the Muslim Brotherhood, while Petr Pavel, former Czech chief of staff who is now chairman of the NATO Military Committee, says intelligence analyses do not support this theory, Zeman said Pavel concentrates mainly on the threat posed by Russia.
But Pavel largely underestimates the threat coming from the south, Zeman said.
He said he stated his information sources, being high-placed Arab Muslim politicians from “moderate” countries, namely Morocco and the United Arab Emirates.
General Pavel has not named his sources, Zeman said.
Asked how he would handle the immigrants who are already in Europe, Zeman said he supports the consistent observance of the Dublin Regulations, which means the deportation of the persons who are not granted asylum, and also “economic immigrants.”
Zeman said many immigrants either have no documents, or on the contrary, they have several documents. He said according to international agreements, deportation is the sole possible solution.
Asked where he would deport them if it is not known where they came from, Zeman said the EU must find agreement with the countries that would be ready to accept these migrants. He said strictly theoretically, Algeria could be such a country.
Zeman said he believes that the Czech government makes a mistake when it agrees with providing 800 million crowns for Turkey to help deal Europe with the migrant wave.
Turkey, however, does not have the physical possibility of detaining 2.5 million migrants on its territory. To give Turkey money from the Czech and naturally also from the EU budget amounts to waste of money, Zeman said.
He said the government agreed with the financial injection for Turkey because it hopes that Turkey will miraculously succeed in detaining the migrants. But this is not possible, Zeman added.
($1=25.002 crowns)
