Paska: EC Poised to Strip EU Members of Their Sovereignty

Paska: EC Poised to Strip EU Members of Their Sovereignty

Bratislava, April 7 (TASR) – The motions of the European Commission (EC) aimed to tackle the migration crisis are not anchored in reality and have already been rejected by the public and a number of EU member states, Slovak National Party (SNS) first vice-chairman Jaroslav Paska said on Thursday.

On Wednesday (April 6), the EC initiated a process of reforming the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and unveiled measures to ensure safe legal migration to Europe. According to Paska, neither of the two EC proposals, submitted by EC Vice-president Frans Timmermans, is geared towards bolstering protection mechanisms of EU member states against the uncontrolled mass economic migration from Africa and Asia being organised by criminal smuggling groups.

“Both proposals, whether it be the addition to the existing Dublin system of introducing a permanent resettlement mechanism called Dublin Plus or the strengthening of the European Asylum Support Office’s (EASO) mandate tied to further harmonisation of rules pursue the same goal: to strip the member states of their right to decide whom to grant asylum and, instead, force upon them the obligation to shelter immigrants allocated to them by European authorities,” said Paska in reference to the quota system, held in abeyance for several months.

Paska, an MEP {2009-14), reiterated that under international agreements and treaties, it is the Slovak Government, Parliament and Interior Ministry’s Migration Office that bear responsibility for asylum policies in Slovakia, not the EC.

The Slovak Government is obliged to govern the state with a sense of responsibility and prudence. It doesn’t have the mandate to finance the lives of thousands of immigrants about to be sent to the country as Brussels bureaucrats see fit, said Paska, who underlined that SNS finds the EC proposals unacceptable.

“[The proposals] are unacceptable and unwarranted interference into sovereign decision-making processes of our institutions. They’re reprehensible … clear evidence of European Commission bureaucrats’ thirst for power, an attempt to take advantage of unaddressed problems of migrants for their own political ends,” said Paska.