Prague, March 1 (CTK) – The Czech government will not accept any refugees based on the European Union mandatory quotas and it wants to defend itself against the EC’s legal action, Prime Minister Andrej Babis (ANO) told the Chamber of Deputies in reaction to a question by a Communist (KSCM) MP on Thursday.
“We certainly will not accept anybody. We are resolutely against anybody dictating us who should live and work in our country. The quotas divide Europe and they are not effective,” Babis told the parliament.
“We consider it absurd that the European Commission sues us for something that is nonsense,” Babis said about the fact that the EC took the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to court for their refusal to take in asylum seekers from Italy and Greece.
The Czech Republic has two months to defend itself.
Babis recalled that the Visegrad Four group, comprising Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks, recently made a marked financial contribution to a fund assisting migration in Africa, which is administered by Italy.
Due to the dispute over the refugee quotas, the EU debate on a reform of its asylum system has been blocked for two years. An EU summit confirmed last autumn that the member states would like to reach consensus on the issue.
In dealing with the migration crisis, the EU now focuses primarily on the protection of its outer borders and a faster return of the rejected asylum seekers to their countries of origin, with which the EU tries to cooperate more intensively.
