The ongoing exodus of refugees from North Africa has put their nearest port of call, Italy, in a difficult situation, with the country calling for the rest of the EU to share the burden of responsibility for the asylum-seekers. Many countries are refusing, however, including the Slovak Republic.
After a meeting of EU justice and interior ministers in Brussels on Thursday, Slovak interior minister Daniel Lipsic has rejected Slovakia’s support for a scheme of redistributing refugees. Italy is afraid that hundreds of thousands of refugees will land on its shores from Libya in the wake of civil unrest there.
Lipsic categorically rejects any system of relocating refugees, saying the current system in place in the EU regarding asylum-seekers should be preserved. Lipsic also relayed the consensus of other EU ministers that Italy’s worries about a mass-scale exodus are blown out of proportion, while admitting that solidarity and flexibility in the EU would be necessary to deal with the situation.