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Visegrád states oppose the EU migration pact
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Von der Leyen presents a solution for a common immigration policy
For five years, EU states have been desperately at odds over their common asylum and migration policy. The President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, presents her proposal for a solution to the 27 EU countries.
The Czech prime minister described the plans as “nonsense”: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary reject the EU’s asylum reform proposals. Even a conversation with Ursula von der Leyen couldn’t change that.
SUBWAYSeveral states of the Eastern European Visegrád Group have rejected the EU Commission’s asylum reform proposals. “There is no progress,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Thursday at a joint press conference with the heads of government of Poland and the Czech Republic in Brussels. The reform proposals still included the plan to distribute refugees through quotas within the EU, but no plans for reception camps outside the European Union.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis made a similar statement. The EU must “stop migration”, he says. That is why it is necessary to establish “hotspots” outside the European Union and not within the camps. Therefore, the EU must negotiate with Libya and Syria, for example, so that people stay there.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the Visegrád group of four countries, to which Slovakia also belongs, maintains its position that EU migration policy should focus on a “rigorous and effective border control policy” and help to the countries of origin. “We want to prevent problems at the source rather than having to deal with huge and controversial proposals …”
The three heads of government had previously met in Brussels with the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. Obviously, states do not want to reject new negotiations on asylum reform. Babis said he expected a “long discussion.”
On Wednesday, the EU Commission tabled new proposals for asylum reform, which has been controversial for years. They depend on accelerated asylum procedures at the border and increasingly rapid deportations of rejected asylum seekers.
They also provide aid from other EU countries to the main countries of arrival, such as Greece and Italy, by distributing refugees. Therefore, countries that refuse to accept refugees, such as the Visegrád states, can alternatively show solidarity by ensuring that the same number of asylum seekers who have already been rejected are deported.
Mixed reactions
“Redistribution and quotas are maintained regardless of name, redistribution and quotas,” Orbán said. “Changing the name is not enough.”
Even before meeting von der Leyen that morning, Babis described the Commission’s proposal as “nonsense.” “If we do not accept migrants, we cannot deport them.”
Reactions to the Commission’s proposal in the rest of the EU have been mixed. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) called the proposal a “good basis”.
Austrian Interior Minister Karl Neuhammer stated that the Commission had complied with his government’s demands on the issues of repatriation, protection of external borders and cooperation with third countries. Neuhammer emphatically rejected a refugee distribution mechanism in the EU: it should not be entered through the “back door” either.
