SIX EASTERN CENTRAL EUROPEAN STATES TO COOPERATE ON MIGRATION POLICY IN VIEW OF RESTRICTIVE GERMAN ASYLUM PRACTICE
The Interior Ministers of Austria, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czechia met behind closed doors at a conference on 16 March, in Prag.
At the meeting, the ministers continued discussions on asylum and illegal immigration initiated at a conference in Budapest, in February, attended by 33 European countries (see FECL No.13, p.1). Germany was not invited to the Prag meeting, in order to prevent any form of "political pressure", as Jan Ruml, the Czechian Minister of Home Affairs said.
In the words of the speaker of the Czechian Interior Ministry, the geographic situation of Central Europe's eastern states requires common solutions.
Among others, it was to be considered at the Prag meeting, if the effects of an expected further restriction of German asylum legislation should be dealt with rather by the conclusion of bi-lateral agreements with Germany or by a multi-lateral convention.
One of the main issues is the return of rejected asylum seekers who entered Germany via one of the states present at the Prag meeting.
According to the "asylum compromise" reached in Germany between the coalition government in Bonn and the opposition social-democrats last December, in future, countries as Poland, Czechia, Austria and Switzerland will be considered as "safe countries". As a result, Germany will no longer grant access to asylum seekers entering its territory from one of the above states.
Germany's eastern neighbour countries now fear they face a "jam" of asylum seekers that they will be unable to cope with. Some 50'000 "illegal immigrants" are staying in the Republic of Czechia alone.
According to press reports in Prag, the Czechian government is already planning the reintroduction of the visa-obligation for nationals of some Eastern European countries.
In Prag, the ministers however failed to reach agreement on the drafting of a common multi-lateral convention which would have strengthened the position of the six countries at negociations with Germany. No agreement either was reached on common visa-obligations for the main "refugee generating" countries.
The six countries will now seek to reach separate bi-lateral agreements with Germany. Such proceedings involve the risk of one state playing off against the other. Observers fear that, after the failure of the Prag meeting there is now increased risk for conflicts among the six countries. The failure to achieve a common visa-policy has already resulted in some irritation. Hungary is reproached with jeopardising the aims of the conference because of its refusal to introduce the visa-obligation for nationals from Romania. Hungary objects to such a measure which would run counter to its determination not to cut ties with some 2 million ethnic Hungarians living in Romania.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 17.3.93, 18.3.93