Hungary’s justice minister visits his Polish counterpartner

Krakow (MTI) – The permanent refugee relocation mechanism proposed recently by the EU could only be implemented after amending the EU treaties currently in place, Justice Minister László Trócsányi told MTI after talks with his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Ziobro in Krakow on Friday.

The two ministers discussed inter-ministry cooperation, with particular emphasis on the migration crisis and counter-terrorism efforts.

Trocsanyi told MTI that they discussed the European Commission’s two fresh proposals regarding refugee resettlement, one of which would create a system for resettling migrants around the EU according to a “permanent distribution key”.

The quota system designed to relocate 120,000 migrants in the EU that was approved in September had already proved that relocation schemes cannot work, Trócsányi said, adding that central European countries were beginning to finalise a joint position on both the earlier and the most recent refugee redistribution scheme.

As regards the possibility that the EU may overturn rejections of asylum requests by member states, Trócsányi said ruling on asylum-related matters was a split competency of both EU bodies and member states. The latter cannot be denied the right to assess asylum applications at a national level, the minister insisted. The EU treaties currently in effect do not transfer competencies related to freedom and security from member states to EU bodies, he said.

The minister said there would likely be fierce debates in the near future about whether refugee relocation is a national or EU-level competency.

Trócsányi welcomed Ziobro’s announcement that Poland would support Hungary’s lawsuit challenging mandatory migrant quotas at the European Court of Justice. With the lawsuit now supported by both Poland and Slovakia, a total of 55 million people have challenged the quota scheme, he said, referring to the combined population of the three countries.

Poland’s previous government that was still in power last September backed the plan to relocate 120,000 migrants under a quota scheme. The Law and Justice party, which came to power in November, said it would uphold the outgoing government’s commitment to take in some 7,000 migrants by the end of 2017, under the condition that it would prioritise national security interests when assessing asylum requests. Therefore, unlike Hungary and Slovakia, Poland will not file its own lawsuit against the migrant quota decision.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters