Slovakia refuses to implement European Union refugee resettlement deal

Ministers in Brussels have voted by a majority to accept quotas to distribute people across Europe.

Ireland did not have a vote, as it has an automatic opt-out on justice matters.

As The Guardian explains it, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania, which opposed the plan, plus five other countries in central and eastern Europe will be forced to take in about 10,000 refugees each.

“We are watching Salafists appear as benefactors and helpers to contact refugees directly with the aim of inviting them into mosques”, Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the Federal Office of Protection of the Constitution, said in an interview published in the Rheinische Post.

The BBC today also says “mandatory quotas have now been dropped”, citing unidentified European Union diplomats.

On Wednesday, assembly members in the district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg will debate a proposal to seize several properties including parts of Riehmers Hofgarten, an ornate bloc of houses from the late 19th century.

German cities are struggling to house hundreds of thousands of migrants who have come to the country this year seeking to escape war, persecution and poverty.

European Union interior ministers were due to discuss redistributing 120,000 migrants at a meeting in Brussels Tuesday, and the dissenting countries may be outvoted on the issue under the EU’s decision-making rules if there is no agreement.

Luxembourg will do its utmost to make interior ministers arrive at a compromise in the question of migration, Foreign Minister of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn said after a meeting of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries, Luxembourg and Latvia in Prague Monday.

Slovakia said the move had “nonsensically” caused a deep rift and vowed not to implement a quota.

“I would rather go to an infringement than to accept this diktat, ” he said, quoted by Slovakia’s leading SME daily”.

The EU’s executive Commission plans to allocate more than 300 million euros to top up its “trust fund” for Syrian refugees.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, more than a million migrants will arrive in Europe this year and over 400,000 of them plan to stay in the continent long-term.