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Czech seeks blocking minority on refugees quotas

Xinhua, October 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

After a meeting with MEPs on Friday, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said that Prague wants to win over allies with whom to create a blocking minority to prevent the possible outvoting on the permanent refugee sharing quotas.

In addition to talks within the Visegrad Group (V4), Sobotka said Czech will also try to convince other countries, including Finland and the Baltic nations.

He said the Czech Republic is ready to take care of refugees, but it insists on a voluntary basis.

He said the Czech Republic also wants to negotiate with countries that are pushing the permanent mandatory quotas through.

Despite opposition of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, the EU in September decided that 120,000 refugees from Italy and Greece will be reallocated across the EU countries.

Under EU rules, a proposal can be blocked by minimally four countries that represent over 35 percent of the EU' population.

Sobotka believes that it is not the time to discuss the permanent redistribution mechanism at the moment. According to him, the EU now has to evaluate first the operation of the temporarily mechanisms, and only then can negotiate the permanent ones.

The majority of MEPs agreed on Friday that it is not suitable for Czech to take the quotas issue to court, such actions would weaken the negotiating position of the Czech Republic. Enditem