Prague, Oct 22 (CTK) – The Senate, the upper house of the Czech parliament, Thursday called on the government to considerably increase financial, material and expert aid to the countries hit the most by the current migrant crisis, in harmony with the EU demands.
The government should also increase the contributions to international organisations, such as the U.N. refugee agency and the World Food Programme, the Senate decided during a debate on the September and October meetings of the European Council focused on the migrant crisis.
PM Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) told senators that the Czech Republic annually earmarks four billion crowns for development and humanitarian aid, 800 million of which go directly to particular countries on the basis of bilateral agreements.
Last week, the cabinet also approved the rise in the aid to the countries facing the migrant influx. The sum is yet to be debated by the foreign affairs and finance ministries, Sobotka said.
The EU member states should send 500 million euros in total to the fund for aid to refugees from Syria staying in Turkey, and thus level up the same sum provided by the European Commission (EC).
The Czech government approved the deployment of 25 soldiers and equipment to help Hungary protect the EU and Schengen external border two weeks ago.
However, Sobotka again refused to send military corps from Europe to calm down the situation in the Middle East. He called it nonsense, pointing out thar the military operations had only destabilised the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sobotka said that in view Of the migrant crisis, the Schengen system must be modified since it was not prepared for the refugees influx.
Sobotka also promised to facilitate the visa regime with Ukraine for the workers whom Czech firms would like to employ. There are 110,000 vacancies in the Czech Republic that cannot be filled with the Czech unemployed, he added.
The Senate appreciated in its resolution that the core of the discussions on the migrant crisis on the EU level had diverted from the relocation mechanisms and welcomed that the EU would like to focus on cooperation with third countries, strengthen its outer border and secure the readmission of economic refugees.
