N. Peter Kramer’s Weekly Column
On Monday the Polish government informed their Czech neigbours that controls at the Polish-Slovak border would be introduced. After contact between the two governments, Czechia decided as well to start controls at their border with Slovakia. ‘Otherwise all illegal migration flows from Slovakia would logically move to Czechia’, Interior Minister Rakusan said.
Not long after the Czech government, Austrian colleagues also took the decision to introduce controls with Slovakia. Austrian Interior Minister Karner said, ‘we will fight that the alternative roues could go via Austria’. The measures have been ‘closely coordinated’ with Czechia and Poland the Austrian minister stated.
Minister Rakusan was clear, ‘It turns out that unless we have an EU-wide migration framework, a return policy, a better protected external border, an asylum policy, all of which the new migration pact is supposed to include, it is being replaced by regional cooperation, and we are depriving ourselves of the number one EU privilege, the Schengen area’.
This week the New Migration act will be discussed at the highest EU level, the European Council. But Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki has announced already that he wants to veto the approval of the new migration policy. Protecting Poland from migration is a main campaign issue for the national elections on October 15.
