“Starting at midnight, we reintroduce control on the border with Slovakia,” Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski told reporters.
The Czech Republic will follow this example “in coordination with its neighbors,” the Czech Interior Ministry said.
Later, the Austrian Ministry of the Interior also announced that it would introduce controls at 11 border points with Slovakia “before the smugglers have time to change routes”.
Tests in all three countries are expected to last ten days initially.
“The number of illegal immigrants in the European Union is starting to increase again. We treat it seriously,” Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on the “X” social network.
Slovakia has recently experienced an increase in the number of border violators. They mainly come through Hungary and Serbia.
After the announcements of Prague and Warsaw, Slovak Prime Minister Ludovits Odor said that the migration problem needs a European solution on the external borders.
“As soon as a country strengthens the protection of its border, it creates a cascade effect, we will all pay for it, and the result will be very uncertain,” Odor said, adding that Slovakia would respond to the actions of neighboring countries on Wednesday.
In eight months of this year, approximately 24,500 immigrants who entered the country illegally were found in Slovakia.
Last year, there were 10,900 such people, but even before that, their number was measured in the hundreds annually, according to Slovak police estimates.
Most of the crossers claim to be Syrian. This means that they cannot be detained or deported according to international law, and they continue on their way to Western Europe, explained police chief Stefan Hamran.
Robert Fico, the leader of the “Smer-SD” party, which received the most votes in the Slovak parliamentary elections, has promised to immediately introduce control on the border with Hungary if he becomes prime minister.
“To solve the problem with migrants, we will have to use force,” Fico said.
The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia make up the so-called Visegrad group, which in 2015, when a wave of migrants overwhelmed Europe, opposed quotas in the distribution of migrants among the countries of the European Union.
Germany said last week it would tighten border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic in response to a surge in illegal immigration.
German Interior Minister Nancy Fesser recently proposed the possibility of introducing permanent checkpoints on the border with Poland and the Czech Republic, similar to the one on the border with Austria.
All these countries are members of the European Union and the Schengen area. Reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area is only allowed in exceptional cases and Brussels must be notified beforehand.
Typo?
Highlight the text and press Ctrl+Enter to send the corrected text fragment to the editor!
Highlight the text and press the Report an error button to send the corrected text fragment to the editor!
Report a bug
2023-10-03 16:17:54
#Poland #Czech #Republic #Austria #reintroduce #border #checks #Slovakia
