The presidents of Visegrad Group states on Friday called for aid to be provided to crisis-torn nations instead of continuing to accept their migrants and refugees.
PRAGUE (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th October, 2018) The presidents of Visegrad Group states on Friday called for aid to be provided to crisis-torn nations instead of continuing to accept their migrants and refugees.
The leaders of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia gathered on Friday in the Slovak resort town of Strbske Pleso.
Czech President Milos Zeman pointed out that now that the war in Syria was coming to an end, it was necessary to invest in the country's reconstruction efforts.
"From my point of view, the civil war in Syria is coming to an end and now this country needs huge investments for its reconstruction. It is better to help rebuild Syria's infrastructure rather than to discuss mandatory redistribution of EU migrants, the majority of whom will come to Germany anyway," Zeman said.
Zeman is a known critic of the bloc's migration policy. He has repeatedly said that Prague would not yield to external pressure on the migration issue and even accused Muslim migrants of being unwilling to integrate into the European community.
Hungarian President Janos Ader focused on the issue of securing the European Union's borders, which, from his point of view, must be done by national armies of the EU member states.
"Each country must ensure the security of its own borders, including against undocumented migrants. If they do not have enough opportunities to do this, then the European agency Frontex could help them," Ader said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been criticizing EU migration policies for years, calling them a "Trojan horse of terrorism." In 2015, Hungary built its first border fence to prevent illegal crossings.
Polish President Andrzej Duda pointed out the need to tackle human trafficking in order to resolve the migration issue.
"We must be tough in fighting human traffickers, who earn large sums of money by trafficking refugees to Europe. Moreover, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the migrants are not interested in [settling in] such countries as our Visegrad Group member states, they want to live in Western Europe. I cannot even imagine what we could do in order to force them to remain in our countries. That would cause a great conflict," Duda said.
Duda has also criticized EU migration policies many times. In January, the Polish president even said that the bloc's efforts to force Warsaw to accept the mandatory migrant quotas were likely to make Poland question its future membership in the European Union.
Slovak President Andrej Kiska spoke about the rise of xenophobia and nationalism in Europe within recent years and called for preventing a split in the European Union.
"Any discussions on dividing Europe into an old one and new one, or double speed Europe, are not about the future of the European continent we want to see. It is necessary to renew the initial idea of Europe, strive for the unity of the European states and not to waste time and energy on unnecessary disputes," Kiska said.
Slovakia, like other Visegrad Group states, is an opponent of the EU migrant redistribution scheme. In December 2015, Slovakia along with Hungary filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against the quota system, which means to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy across other member states within two years.
