Kaliňák: Design of the hot-spot system is flawed

The Monday meeting of interior ministers of EU member countries has not yielded any headway forward from the viewpoint of the migration crisis and could have been carried out also as a video-conference.

Slovak Interior Minister Robert KaliňákSlovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák (Source: SITA)

Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák said this after the special meeting in Brussels to address the refugee crisis, continuing to criticise the system of hotspots.

“The whole system is designed in a wrong way,” said Kaliňák as cited by the TASR newswire, adding that apart from Visegrad Four countries (Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) also other countries confirmed that hotspots do not work.

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Kaliňák sees the biggest problem in Greece referring to the fact that it does not register migrants, while the principle of relocation quotas should have worked in a way that no migrant would leave Greece without being registered. This basic rule has been, in his words, constantly violated.

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The Slovak minister warned that Slovakia would start dealing with relocations only when it would see that migrants are allocated also to transit countries – for example Latvia, Lithuania or Portugal – and it will be possible to check that migrants remain there and no secondary movement occurs.

“On the other hand I am pleased that V4 countries again gave a clear stance that we refuse to put into circulation the permanent mechanism of relocations,” said Kaliňák, adding that efforts from the side of the European Commission and the EC Council to push through this model have eased but he does not exclude the idea that EU officers would return this topic to the table in December.

In the end Kaliňák reiterated that Europe “cannot handle” another influx of migrants. He sees as a solution a flexible agreement with Turkey, whose ships are idly watching the escape of thousands of migrants to Greek islands. According to him, the EU should offer Turkey a promise of cooperation and adequate counter values; only after the Turkish side starts to act it will be possible to speak about handling the migration wave.

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