The migration pact will enable better protection of the EU’s external borders and faster expulsion of refugees, according to Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan (STAN). But it is precisely him that the anger of the opposition movement ANO is directed towards. According to Babiš, dbargain “crazy and monstrous”, according to him, it contains hidden refugee quotas and commits to accepting migrants from Africa and the Middle East according to the ideas of Brussels.
The Austrian counters that it is not. According to him, Babiš and the rest of the opposition are only scaring as part of pre-election rhetoric, which “unfortunately pays off”. Before the meeting, he declared that the migration pact, though it is not perfect, but it gives a basis for further measures. It is according to him better than the current lack of precise rules for example in information sharing or return policy.
“The current state of migration in the Union is unsatisfactory, it requires rational solutions, not irrational scaremongering,” emphasized the Austrian. According to him, unresolved migration will lead to the fact that the EU finds itself in a state of actual danger.
“Not the migration pact, but the long-term non-solution of the situation, is an invitation for migrants,” emphasized the Austrian in the House of Representatives, when he appealed to politicians not to condemn the pact. He highlighted some parts of the package that were not mentioned by opposition politicians. He spoke for example about the border procedure, mandatory detention, return policy or pressure on external countries for better border protection.
According to him, the rules set in the pact are flexible and member states can choose whether to provide financial or material assistance or accept asylum seekers. According to him, the Migration Pact does not allow ordering a member country to accept part of the refugees.
“There is no possibility for the state to overrule and order that someone must be accepted as part of relocations. This just isn’t there.” the Austrian stated. According to him, similar claims are the same myths as the words about the penalty that member countries will have to pay for not accepting refugees. According to the minister, in the case of mandatory solidarity, the states will be able to choose how they will provide it. “Financial resources, relocation or provision of material and technical security,” enumerated.
“We have a policy of fear here, which is unfortunately paying off. The Czech Republic will not become a caliphate,” joked the Austrian.
Czech exception
According to the Austrian, the Czech Republic has an exception because of refugees from Ukraine. Those in the country are not treated as refugees, but as persons granted temporary protection. “The Austrian minister is lying when he claims that he negotiated an exception to the migration ban,” MP Klára Dostálova (ANO) told journalists today. And this despite the fact that the European Commissioner for EU Internal Affairs Ylva Johansoon confirmed the Austrian’s words only about an hour before.
“A country like the Czech Republic, which has already shown solidarity towards a large number of refugees from Ukraine, will be able to be exempted from any mandatory solidarity contributions,” wrote Johansoon on the social network today.
Ukrainians in the Czech Republic
But whether the deputies will even discuss the matter today depends on the deputies themselves, whether they approve the program of the meeting. Even before it, deputies with priority rights can comment on the program, which sometimes takes several hours in the lower chamber due to obstructions. At the same time, MPs should deal with both written and oral interpellations of members of the government today.
“No one claims that the pact will stop migration flows. It is the basis for us to be able to manage the situation in the future,” said the Austrian at a press conference today. He repeated that the Czech Republic has an exception from mandatory solidarity. But it will depend on the number of Ukrainians in the country. “I wish that the exception does not last forever, I wish for the end of the war so that the Ukrainians can return,” the minister said, adding that then the same conditions as for other states would apply to the Czech Republic.
Grandma was getting angry
“Fiala and the Austrian, without any exaggeration, exchanged our security, culture and way of life for uncontrolled migration, an explosion of crime and the disintegration of our society,” declared Babiš at the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies. According to him, the migration pact is not a cure, but a poison that serves the “assisted suicide of Europe and its culture”. According to Babiš, the situation could be resolved if there were agreements between individual countries – with Turkey or Tunisia – that would keep the refugees with them.
But Babiš’s comments did not leave Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) cold, who is watching the debate from Brussels, where he is participating in a meeting of the European Council. “On the other hand, Andrej Babiš committed the greatest betrayal of our country: by his willingness to sacrifice our security, by promoting the interests of Viktor Orbán instead of the interests of the Czech Republic, by neglecting responsible economic management and by indebting our country,” wrote Fiala on the X social network.
Commissioner for Migration @YlvaJohansson this makes it clear: the approved migration pact does not contain any mandatory migration quotas. It contains what we asked for: the possibility to choose flexibly how we will help our allies who are affected by the wave of migration in solidarity.
Commissioner…
— Petr Fiala (@P_Fiala) April 18, 2024
The prime minister commented on the topic even after the end of the extraordinary summit in Brussels. According to him, there are many lies and incorrect information. “The migration pact is a thing that ended halfway. On the one hand, it is good that a solution has been reached that is stronger than previous attempts to solve illegal migration, on the other hand, the approved version does not go as far as the Czech Republic would have imagined. responded the Prime Minister to the statements that were made today at an extraordinary meeting of the Czech Chamber of Deputies.
“We are not completely satisfied, for example, with how the return policy is handled there, and that the bureaucracy is increasing compared to the original proposal,” added Fiala.
“This is a mega-pod that has no parallels,” then the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Karel Havlíček (ANO) spoke for the Novinky server. What bothers him is that the new EU legislation introduces a mechanism according to which either the country must accept refugees or pay 20 thousand euros for one refugee, which is roughly over half a million crowns. However, the current approved proposal omitted the amount. Instead, it introduces a complex mechanism that recalculates the amount through population and GDP.
Minister for European Affairs Martin Dvořák (STAN) stated that the Babiš government applied for the principle of solidarity in the field of migration in 2020, but did not propose or enforce any solution. YES, according to the minister, “they change their opinions depending on how it suits them”. “We cannot refuse solidarity when it is disadvantageous for us, it would be dishonest and unsportsmanlike,” said Dvořák. He considers criticism of the pact by the opposition to be playing on the impulses of voters. “The coalition must be beaten no matter what it does, even if it is in line with our deepest convictions,” Dvořák commented on the opposition’s progress.
Compliance across the EU
However, the Czech government decided to delay the vote on the migration pact. Compared to the version approved by the Council of the EU, the resulting version increases the administrative and bureaucratic burden for the member states, thus reducing the possibility of effectively preventing illegal migration already at the external border of the European Union compared to the June proposal, the Ministry of the Interior said.
According to the Czech Prime Minister, it is not insignificant that the Czech Republic has accepted such a huge number of refugees from Ukraine, and it is right that this is also reflected in the mechanism of solidarity that the migration pact talks about. “The exception applies to the Czech Republic, but it has general validity for all those who provide temporary protection to refugees in this way, which I think is well negotiated,” stated Fiala. He emphasized, however, that it is necessary to continue the search for a European solution. “If this European solution is not more effective, we will not be able to cope with migration,” he added.
The Czech Prime Minister said that he is very cautious when it comes to various “centralist and ill-conceived solutions at the European level”. “But here I think that there is no other way than to find an even more effective European solution in the future, otherwise illegal migration cannot be defeated,” he added. According to him, a stronger return policy, faster asylum procedures, more effective cooperation with source and transit countries, especially in North Africa, are needed, but it is also important to break up various gangs of traffickers. “All this needs to be done and done much more efficiently than we are doing it now,” concluded the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic.
