Fico at V4 Summit Rejects Creation of Muslim Communities in Slovakia

Budapest, January 26 (TASR) – I reject the creation of Muslim communities in Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) stated after a summit of the Visegrad Four (V4) countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) in Budapest, expressing his appreciation that acting Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have a clear and identical view on migration.

“The whole of Europe is living with migration, and I’m afraid that this topic will also affect life in Slovakia in the near future, and I very much welcome the fact that the V4 has a clear view on migration issues. First, all four V4 countries reject mandatory quotas. All of us say that a substantial element of migration is of an economic nature,” said Fico.

Fico remarked that the prime ministers of the Visegrad group agreed that if any decisions are adopted in the future, they must be adopted with the agreement of all member states of the European Union. “There shouldn’t be any repeat of what happened when mandatory quotas were introduced by a majority vote of interior ministers. We’ve also said in our statement today that it’s ridiculous if prime ministers and presidents meet, accept a political decision, and then interior ministers change this decision by some qualified majority,” he emphasised, adding that he felt strong support within the V4 concerning this issue.

The prime ministers also discussed issues relating to the EU’s future and agreed that the Visegrad Four group is a major asset for the European Union in terms of both economics and culture.

According to Orban, the EU needs to be redesigned because the original goals of the European project haven’t been met. He emphasised that the V4 countries are pro-European, aiming for a stronger Europe, not a kind of United States of Europe, but a Europe of free nations.