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V4 countries condemn latest migrant proposal

CCTV.com

05-05-2016 13:12 BJT

The Visegrad Four countries - Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary - have strongly rejected the European Commission's proposal on migrant redistribution.

On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed a system of distributing asylum seekers.  The aim is to ease the load on frontline states like Greece and Italy. The latest proposal includes cash penalties on countries which fail to take their share of the overall quota -- 250,000 euro for each asylum seeker refused.

The foreign ministers of the four countries were attending a meeting in Prague. They expressed their huge dissatisfaction towards the plan, calling it blackmail.

"About the proposal, I am still wondering if it is a serious proposal, as it sounds like idea announced during the April Fool's Day," said Witold Waszczykowski, Polish Foreign Minister.

"It's simply blackmailing, the quota concept is a dead-end street and I would like to ask the Commission not to run into this dead-end street anymore. It's against common sense, it's unimplementable, and is breaking European regulations," said Peter Szijjarto, Hungarian Foreign Minister.

"I think such a proposal makes no sense, and it can't solve any problem. We should unite to oppose it. I don't understand why it comes back to the old issue. It's a pity," said Lubomir Zaoralek, Czech Foreign Minister.

"The compulsive quota system has not been agreed unanimously by European Union member countries. We think it should be adopted on a voluntary basis," said Likas Parizek, Slovak Deputy Foreign Minister.

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