Prague, March 8 (CTK) – Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec yesterday rejected the fresh call by Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern to punish the EU member states that keep refusing to accept refugees by cutting the EU subsidies granted to them.
Kern made the statement earlier yesterday, one day before a EU summit that will also focus on migration affairs. Chovanec dismissed the demand as nonsense.
He said the Czech Republic provides sufficient aid in the regions from which refugees are coming from and in the European countries in which they are arriving.
Chovanec said Kern’s statement is yet another incomprehensible step that divides the EU at the time when common solutions should be sought.
“The Czech Republic is one of the countries that are most active within the refugee crisis and it consistently provides aid in the areas of conflicts and in other countries,” he said in a press release.
Chovanec will have an opportunity to discuss this issue with Kern, who has headed the Austrian Social Democrats since last year, on Saturday when Kern will attend the CSSD’s election congress in Brno as a guest, along with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-Social Democracy).
Kern’s demand would hit mainly Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Other European politicians were considering cutting the EU subsidies to these states as well.
But European Commissioner Corina Cretu said last year that the drawing of EU subsidies is not related to migration affairs. On Tuesday, German Finance Ministry Wolfgang Schauble rejected this idea.
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