Migrant crisis: Opponents kick over new EU quotas

Central European countries have reacted angrily after plans to relocate 120,000 migrants across the continent were approved by EU interior ministers.

Under the scheme, migrants will be moved from Italy, Greece and Hungary to other EU countries.

But Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary voted against accepting mandatory quotas.

Czech President Milos Zeman said: “Only the future will show what a mistake this was.”

Read also: Migrant crisis: Hungary declares state of emergency

The BBC’s Europe correspondent Chris Morris says it is highly unusual for an issue like this – which involves national sovereignty – to be decided by majority vote rather than a unanimous decision.

The scheme to take in migrants appears on the surface to be voluntary, he says, although countries are likely to be given little choice in the matter.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico says he will not accept the new terms and will not “respect this diktat of the majority”

Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec has tweeted: “Very soon we will realise the emperor has no clothes. Today was a defeat for common sense”

Radio Prague reports that the Czech Republic could seek to take the matter to the European Court of Justice

In Latvia, whose interior minister backed the move, hundreds of people have marched against the quotas

Hungary will respect Tuesday’s decision, a government spokesman says

Under the EU’s rules, a country that does not agree with a policy on migration imposed upon it could have the right to appeal to the European Council.

But Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn, who chaired the meeting, said he had “no doubt” opposing countries would implement the measures.

Finland abstained from the vote. Poland, which had originally opposed the proposal, voted for it.

“We felt that it was much better to negotiate, to negotiate all these conditions, which for us are important,” Poland’s Europe minister, Rafal Trzaskowski, told the BBC.

“We preferred to be an active member of this debate.”

The scheme must now be ratified by EU leaders in Brussels on Wednesday.

Credit: BBC

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