2023-11-27 17:28:02
SZEGED, Hungary (AP) — Six European Union countries have agreed to step up efforts to protect the bloc from unauthorized migration and combat smuggling networks, their interior ministers said Monday.
Ministers from the so-called V4 Group of Central European countries — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — were joined by their counterparts from Austria and Germany at a summit in Szeged, a Hungarian city 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the Serbian border. .
Some EU governments consider that the increase in migration along the so-called Balkan route, which leads to Serbia and Hungary, requires a tougher response from the countries in the region.
Czech Interior Minister Vit Rakusan, who organized the meeting, said migration is “a shared challenge” for Europe and that solutions are needed to prevent migrants from entering the bloc without legal authorization.
“We are all on the same migratory route. “We share borders and the situation on the external border of the EU affects us all,” he declared. He did not elaborate on what specific measures will be taken against traffickers.
Rakusan asserted that recent decisions by European governments to reactivate border checks within the Schengen Area are unsustainable, and that the protection of external borders will be the focus of cooperation between the six governments from now on.
“We all want to keep the Schengen Area alive,” where until now no controls were carried out, he said. “We all know that controls and reviews at internal borders are not the right solution.”
Some 13 of the EU’s 27 countries have restarted border checks with their neighbors in recent months, deviating from the check-free status of Schengen Area borders until now.
Last month, Slovakia resumed checks on its border with Hungary to reduce the number of migrants arriving on its territory, after neighbors Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland imposed similar measures on their borders with Slovakia.
The decision was due in part to the proliferation of violence in northern Serbia in recent months. Shootings have become common on the border with Hungary, where migrants, with the help of smugglers, have sought ways to cross into the EU.
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