Fico: Balkans Migration Route Can't Be Blocked without Turkey

Bratislava, March 24 (TASR) – It’s a display of realism in politics to acknowledge that the EU isn’t able to prevent migrants from entering Europe via the so-called Balkans route without cooperating with Turkey, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said at a session of the parliamentary European Affairs Committee on Thursday (March 23).

“Looking at the previous period, we can see that only 2 percent of migrants are now getting to Europe via the Balkans route. This is a huge decline,” said Fico, adding that Greece appears to be the real troublemaker at the moment with letting migrants go further into Europe.

While appreciating the cooperation with Turkey concerning migrants, Fico stated that the running of internal affairs in Turkey is far from the ideals of the EU.

“I don’t want to advocate for anyone, but comparing Russia and Turkey, we can see that Russia is actually a democratic country,” said Fico.

At the same time the Slovak premier believes that not much will be changed in EU-Turkey relations in the next future. “Nothing will happen, we’ll keep pelting each other. What matters for Europe is to keep the migration wave halted. I believe that in the spirit of this realistic politics, we’ll certainly respect and even swallow certain things that we otherwise wouldn’t respect. Unfortunately, this is how world politics works,” added Fico.