European Parliament Building in Brussels, Belgium (Photo credit: JLogan/Wikimedia Commons)The European Union has decided to initiate legal proceedings against Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland due to their immigration policies that do not take in refugees.
A report in Channel NewsAsia says that Hungary and Poland have refused to accept asylum-seekers, a stand that has found favour with the nationalist and ‘Eurosceptic’ voters.
President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker had earlier said to German weekly Der Spiegel that countries that do not take part in the relocation and asylum plans would have to assume that they would be facing infringement procedures.
We will not give in to blackmail from Brussels and we reject the mandatory relocation quota.Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban in an address to the Hungarian parliament
Both Poland and Hungary have refused to accept any of the 1,60,000 refugees from the Middle East and Africa. The Czech Republic on the other hand, took in 12 of its allotted 2,691 refugees before it stopped accepting anymore citing security concerns.
Interior Minister of Poland, Mariusz Blaszczak called the relocation policies ineffective, and said that they attract more immigration to Europe. The rise in Islamic attacks in the region has caused Eastern Europeans to be sceptical about immigration of people from Muslim-dominated areas in the Middle East as well as North Africa.
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