Visegrad 4 Slam ‘Blackmail’ Over E.U. Refugee Relocation
Leaders of the Visegrad Group, or V4, meeting in Warsaw issued a strong rejection of European Union pressure to take in refugees from E.U. front-line states.
European leaders have suggested they could impose financial penalties on countries such as the V4 (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic) who refuse to accept refugees relocated from front-line states.
“Poland and the Visegrad Group will never agree to this blackmail or to such conditions to be dictated,” Polish prime minister Beata Szydlo told reporters.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, defended his country’s new law ordering the mandatory detention of all asylum seekers in border camps, saying the measures protect the “security of E.U. citizens.”
He said, “We are defending Hungary, we are defending the countries behind us and we can say that Austrians and Germans can sleep in peace.”
The E.U.’s migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos called on Hungary to make sure it complies with E.U. rules on refugees.
Meanwhile, Austria also announced it was requesting an exemption to the E.U. relocation scheme, saying the country had already fulfilled its obligations.
Only 14,500 people have so far been relocated from Greece and Italy under the 2015 scheme, which planned to move 160,000 from the southern European countries.
Italian Official Calls Allegations of NGO–Smuggler Collusion ‘Absurd’
Italy’s deputy foreign minister said growing accusations that NGOs rescuing drowning migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean were helping smugglers were “absurd.”
“If a mother is so desperate she puts a child on a boat, you can’t blame it on a ‘pull factor,’” Mario Giro told Reuters, noting that Italy’s coast guard oversees all rescue operations.
Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor in the Sicilian city of Catania, told Italy’s parliament he suspected direct ties between smuggling groups and the humanitarian organizations rescuing people at sea, but he had no evidence.
Italian admiral Enrico Credendino, who commands the E.U. anti-smuggling operation, Sophia, told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera last week that smugglers were able to find NGO boats due to their large floodlights on the night sea.
Humanitarian groups operating in the Mediterranean Sea strongly reject accusations of collusion.
“If we are not there to save these people and offer them a helping hand, then they will have no chance to survive,” Riccardo Gatti, field coordinator of Proactiva Open Arms’ rescue ship Golfo Azzurro, told Reuters.
Germany: E.U. Should Cut Visas to Countries That Refuse to Take Deportees
Germany’s interior minister called on the E.U. to stop issuing visas to people from countries that will not accept deported asylum seekers.
“If a country is not ready to take its own citizens back, it has to understand that visa policies which allow travel to Europe are not as generous as they used to be, maybe even for the country’s leadership,” Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in Brussels.
Germany is at the forefront of European efforts to step up the return of asylum seekers who are not granted refugee status, making deals with Afghanistan and several African countries to receive deportees.
Recommended Reads:
- IRIN News: New Gambia, New Migration?
- Reuters: The Smuggling Game: Playing With Life and Death to Reach Europe
- The Local: Survey Shows More Muslims Help Refugees in Germany Than Christians
- European Network on Statelessness: Sweden’s Temporary Asylum Laws: The Impending Problems for Stateless Refugees