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EUROPE-MIGRANTS-ITALY
Italy’s request to take migrants “road to hell”: Czech PM
PRAGUE, July 15, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Billionaire Czech Prime Minister Andrej
Babis said Sunday he saw Italy’s request that EU peers take some of 450
migrants stranded at sea on two Frontex vessels as “a road to hell.”
While France and Malta have already agreed to take 50 each, the Czech
government chief held on to his anti-migrant stance which he shares with
other leaders in the region including Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
“Just like the other EU prime ministers, I got a copy of a letter from
Italian Prime Minister (Giuseppe) Conte… in which he asks the EU to take
care of some of 450 people now stranded at sea,” Babis tweeted.
“Such an approach is a road to hell,” added the 63-year-old Slovak-born
populist, whose minority coalition government won a confidence vote Thursday
thanks to backing from the Communist Party.
This approach “only motivates smugglers and increases their income. Our
country won’t take any migrants,” Babis added, calling for “a principle of
voluntariness.”
“We have to help migrants in the countries from which they come, beyond
Europe’s borders, to stop them from setting out on their journey,” said
Babis.
Migration is a hot political issue in the Czech Republic, an EU and NATO
member of 10.6 million people, where just a handful of refugees have settled
since the migrant crisis of 2015.
In an April poll by the Czech Academy of Sciences, 58 percent of Czechs
said the country should accept no migrants from war-ravaged regions.
Some 35 percent of its 1,115 respondents said it should accept them
temporarily and only three percent were willing to let them stay in the
country.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1548 hrs