WARSAW (Reuters) – Migrants entering the European Union should be stopped and turned back to their home countries, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said on Thursday in Brussels ahead of negotiations surrounding a new EU migration plan next week.
A meeting of EU heads of government to discuss a new migration plan, Belarus and coronavirus was postponed from Thursday until next week because European Council President Charles Michel, who normally chairs such gatherings, was quarantined.
“We have to change the system of grants and the quota system, it’s unacceptable for us. That’s why we should keep negotiating… the strategy should look like this – the people coming from these countries, they should be stopped and turned back to their countries and be given help there,” Babis said during a press conference.
His statements comes after Babis, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen met in Brussels ahead of the EU summit next week to discuss the Visegrad Four grouping’s stance on the issues up for discussion.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska and Alicja Ptak; Editing by Toby Chopra)
