BRUSSELS: Leaders from four countries in Eastern Europe will not be attending a weekend emergency meeting about migration in Brussels.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Thursday that all four members of the Visegrad Group — also including Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic — would skip the talks.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that since his country opposes a plan to redistribute asylum-seekers among the European Union countries, “we do not intend to take part in this process.”
Referring to the hastily arranged meeting and to the crisis over migration policies within Germany’s government coalition, the fervently anti-migrant Orban said: “We understand that countries have domestic political difficulties, but this can’t result in pan-European confusion.”
Italy’s hard-line interior minister has said he will not allow a Dutch-flagged boat that rescued some 200 migrants to land in Italy.
Matteo Salvini said Thursday the ship Lifeline rescued 224 migrants in Libyan waters, after the Italian coast guard had told the ship to defer to the Libyan coast guard. Salvini said that he had contacted the Dutch ambassador about the ship’s activities, adding “they will only see Italy on the map.”
The comments came after Italy’s government recently refused to allow the Aqurius, another rescue ship carrying more than 600 migrants, to land at Italian ports.
Lifeline, operated by a German aid group, said it conducted the rescue in international waters, and asked for a safe port but was not told where they could land. It added: “We are sailing northward.”
Aquarius brought the migrants to Spain after Italy and Malta refused to receive them.
