The European Union is committing 'ritual suicide' with its migration policy, warns Slovak PM, as EU commissioner claims 60% are economic migrants and are not fleeing from war
- Robert Fico has urged the 28-member bloc to stop the inflow of migrants
- Called EU's planned system for distributing migrants a 'complete fiasco'
- Netherlands' EU commissioner claims more than half of those flocking to Europe were not fleeing from war
The European Union is committing 'ritual suicide' with its migration policy, according to the Slovak prime minister.
Robert
Fico urged the 28-member bloc to stop the inflow of migrants and called
the EU's proposed quota system for distributing migrants a 'complete
fiasco'.
His
warning came as the Netherlands' EU commissioner Frans
Timmermans claimed 60 per cent of those flocking to Europe were economic
migrants and not fleeing from war.
Robert Fico urged the 28-member bloc
to stop the inflow of 'illegal migrants' and called the EU's proposed
quata system for distributing migrants a 'complete fiasco'
The
51-year-old Slovak leader, a left-winger known for his anti-immigrant
rhetoric, told Czech newspaper Pravo: 'I feel that we in the EU are now
committing ritual suicide and we're just looking on.'
Fico,
whose party is expected to win a general election in March, said the EU
should first of all stop the influx of 'illegal migrants'.
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'If it
takes until late 2016 or 2017 for Europe to set up its planned border
and coastguard force, the EU will have killed itself,' Fico said, adding
that Slovakia had 300 police officers ready to deploy at the external
borders of the passport-free Schengen area.
'We
often stew in our own juices, tackling quotas which are nonsense... and
in the meantime several thousand migrants arrive in Europe every day,'
the premier said.
Slovakia,
a eurozone member of 5.4 million people, has filed a lawsuit against
the EU-proposed quota system for distributing migrants across the
continent, just like neighbouring Hungary.
Fico
said the system had turned out 'a complete fiasco' and that thousands
of migrants distributed according to quotas were impossible to integrate
in Slovakia.
Slovakia, a eurozone member of 5.4
million people, has filed a lawsuit against the EU-proposed quota system
for distributing migrants across the continent, just like neighbouring
Hungary. Migrants are pictured walking across the Macedonian border into
Serbia
'If,
based on temporary or permanent quotas, someone forces us to import
50,000 people with completely different habits and religions - and these
are mostly young men - I can't imagine how we could integrate them. We
can't,' he said.
'They
would end up in a space with its own life and its own rules, and this
is why I'm saying this idea is wrong and unfeasible.'
Holland's
EU commissioner Frans Timmermans claimed more than half of those coming
to Europe as asylum seekers are not fleeing conflict.
He told Nos:
'More than half of the people now coming to Europe come from countries
where you can assume they have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee
status. More than half, 60%.’
He said he based his claim on figures from European border agency Frontex - statistics that are yet to be made public.
Meanwhile,
the Czech Republic has invited fellow EU members Hungary, Poland and
Slovakia to a special summit on migration next month as the bloc
grapples with the record migrant crisis, the Czech prime minister said
on Tuesday.
More than one million people reached
Europe in 2015, most of them refugees fleeing war and violence in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, according to the United Nations refugee
agency.
'The
Czech Republic will call an extraordinary summit of the Visegrad-four
countries for February 15,' Premier Bohuslav Sobotka said, specifying
that the migrant crisis would top the agenda.
His spokesman was not immediately available to give details.
The
Czech Republic holds the rotating presidency of the so-called Visegrad
group, which brings together four central European ex-communist
countries.
All four have rejected the EU's plan for quotas to distribute migrants across the continent.
They
have instead insisted on tighter border control for the 26-member
passport-free Schengen zone and other steps that would reduce the influx
of refugees and migrants into Europe.
More
than one million people reached Europe in 2015, most of them refugees
fleeing war and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, according to
the United Nations refugee agency.
But
few asylum-seekers have chosen to stay in the Czech Republic, Slovakia
and Poland, while Hungary last year built a fence to deflect a migrant
wave heading from the Balkans westwards to wealthier EU members such as
Germany.
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