Budapest, July 4 (CTK special correspondent) – Czech and Hungarian prime ministers, Bohuslav Sobotka and Viktor Orban, talked about migration affairs, bilateral cooperation in research and joint railway projects at the sidelines of a summit of the Visegrad Group (V4) on Tuesday.
Sobotka said the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland rejected the mandatory refugee quotas. The fourth country of the V4 group, Slovakia, expressed political support for this rejection, he added.
In June, the European Commission said it launched legal proceedings against the three countries because they did not offer to accept any new refugees within the redistribution programme for over a year. Slovakia made such an offer, but it challenged the quotas in court.
Sobotka said the three countries plan to coordinate their reaction to the EC steps.
“The quotas make no sense since most refugees are economic migrants,” he said, adding that the migrants pose a security threat.
Sobotka said he can understand that Austria is considering the adoption of stricter measures at its border with Italy. However, this is no solution to the migrant crisis, he said.
It is necessary to take such steps in Africa that would make it unable to smuggle people from this continent to Europe, Sobotka said.
He said it is important that Orban, Slovak PM Robert Fico and Polish PM Beata Szydlo had talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Budapest on Tuesday as Egypt has managed to halt the flow of illegal migrants.
