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Czech Republic says to accept 1,500 refugees in three years

Xinhua, July 9, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Czech Republic plans to accept 1,500 refugees by 2017 and starts accepting the first of refugees in September this year, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Belobradek said Thursday.

The country plans to accept 400 refugees this year, 700 in next year and 400 in 2017. The government has mandated Chovanec to present the plan at an informal meeting of European Union (EU) ministers on Thursday.

Balobradek said that under the draft mandate with which the minister going to act during the years 2015-2017, the Czech Republic would accept 1,100 refugees from EU area and 400 outside the EU. Most of the EU refugees would be from Italy and Greece.

Belobradek said the Czech government wants to negotiate with the EU on how to set up the mechanism of returning the refugees who failed to gain Czech asylum.

Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said it will be a one-off action of solidarity. He said the EU must now "primarily to ensure proper functioning of the Schengen border and implementation of policy on return of illegal economic migrants."

He said the partial redistribution of refugees was necessary assistance provided by the Czech Republic in the current crisis situation, which matches the capabilities of the country, but not as a solution to the migration problem Europe is faced with.

According to officials, the draft mandate on accepting refugees will not include any selection criteria. But certain limitations will have to be set in view of the high number of migrants.

Chovanec said individual refugees' professions and their chance on the labor market may be among the criteria.

The Czech government will discuss the refugees' issue next week again. Chovanec will propose ten buildings that could serve as new facilities for asylum seekers. According to the original proposal of European Union, the Czech Republic was to accept about 1,850 refugees in 2015 and 2016. Endit