V4 countries reject European Commission's latest migrant proposal

Representatives of the Visegrad Four (V4) rejected the European Commission's (EC) proposal on migrant redistribution at a meeting of V4 foreign ministers and Eastern Partnership countries here on Wednesday.

The EC has announced its intention to introduce significant changes to the European asylum policies with an eye towards alleviating the pressure on the overburdened countries taking in the bulk of migrants coming to Europe.

The latest proposal from the EC obliges countries refusing migrant resettlements to pay financial compensation to those countries participating in the resettlements.

In response to the EC's proposal, Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said the EC should not table anything that divides Europe. He said changing asylum policy was a fundamental change to the rules of the European Union (EU).

According to Jiri Ovcacek, the spokesman for Czech President Milos Zeman, the proposal must be rejected.

At a press conference at the end of the two-day meeting, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called the proposal "totally unacceptable" and said the EC's position was one of blackmail.

He said it was a very non-European proposal and went against common sense.

Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski said he was still not sure whether the EC was serious about its proposal.

As for the proposal, Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said on another occasion that his country "won't support the proposal," adding he didn't expect it would win support from many countries. Endit