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V4 countries' PM discuss EU crises in Prague

Xinhua, June 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Visegrad Four (V4) countries' prime ministers discussed here the crises faced by EU at a meeting within the Prague European Summit conference on Wednesday.

Over the migrant crisis, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said that this issue is one of the themes that dominated the Czech presidency of the V4.

He said that the V4 countries emphasized the need to systematically tackle the causes of migration and border protection from the beginning.

Sobotka said that the migration issue has been intensively debated in Europe, and it has almost flooded the public space.

Nationalist tendencies have been rising in Europe and radicals have been emerging, and the best way for Europe to prevent these tendencies is the return to the essence of European cooperation, for example, to build a peace community of states and to improve the living standard of Europeans, he said.

Sobotka also rejected the idea to divide Europe into smaller units. His opinion was supported by Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo. Szydlo said that the EU must not allow itself to be divided into several small unions and Europe must show solidarity with the states that are directly faced with the migrant crisis.

In a joint statement the prime ministers of the V4 countries said they hope Britain will stay in the European Union and they oppose the quotas for taking in asylum seekers.

The V4 countries also indicated that they want to strengthen cooperation between NATO and the EU and contribute to an effective and sufficient strengthening of the Baltic states, it will be easier to face further demanding challenges if Britain remains in EU.

They said the EU should focus on the fundamental causes of the migrant crisis. Proposals based on a mandatory system of relocating asylum seekers might encourage further migrants to come to Europe and further divide the member states and this system would not work in practice.

At the summit, Czech Republic symbolically handed over the presidency of the V4 to Poland. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo said the V4 played a major role in the EU under the Czech leadership and Poland will continue to do it. Enditem