European Union ministers agree on plan to relocate 120000 refugees

Czech personalities linked to the November 1989 overthrow of the communist regime have called on the government, in a letter released to CTK, to meet its European commitments and reassess its “negativist” approach to the redistribution of refugees among EU members. They are among the Eastern Europe countries that have resisted accepting the forced resettlement of refugees on their territory.

Luxembourg’s foreign minister Jean Asselborn, who is presiding the meeting in Brussels, said he would do everything in his powers to reach an agreement among all 28 member states.

“Poland took time out”.

Truckers at the Croatian-Serbian border “blocked all traffic on the largest highway between the two countries” 22 September, RFE reports.

The crisis has raised fears the EU’s cherished Schengen passport-free zone could collapse as countries close their borders to stem the flow of refugees, many of whom are heading for Germany.

The remaining 54,000 were to come from Hungary but this number is now being held “in reserve” until the region’s governments decide where they should go.

Infringement notices have been sent to Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Spain, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Slovenia.

Slovakia will go to court to challenge quotas for distributing asylum-seekers approved by European Union interior ministers, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Wednesday.

“We have been refusing this nonsense from the beginning, and as a sovereign country we have the right to sue,” he added, saying his country would not submit to the quota as long as he leads it.

“If we had not done this, Europe would have been even more divided and its credibility even more undermined”. “In my opinion this system will not in reality be able to start up and it will end up as a major disgrace for the European Commission and the countries that have imposed this system”.

The Czech Interior Ministry has worked out the document before a meeting of the European Union interior ministers on Tuesday that will be followed by a prime ministers’ summit on Wednesday.

The EU’s new relocation plans were outlined after pictures of a drowned Syrian refugee toddler lying on a Turkish beach sparked global outrage.

Afterwards, its opponents lashed out, with Czech President Milos Zeman saying “only the future will show what a mistake this was”.

But United Nations refugee agency UNHCR criticised the plan for not going far enough, pointing out that the 120,000 people the bloc was seeking to share out were equivalent to just 20 days’ worth of arrivals at the current rate.