The four central nations that comprise the Visegrad group (V4) have set aside 35 million euros to help European Union (EU) member states protect the political bloc’s external borders against illegal mass migration.
The four countries that make up the Visegrad group, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia, have all agreed to donate the money to protect the EU external border in an announcement this week. All four countries are attending a European Union conference to discuss migration issues beginning Thursday AP reports.
Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico commented on the move saying, “if we will see good projects in the future, first of all, projects that are effective, we are ready to spend even more money because we really want to show solidarity.”
Some of the countries in the V4 group have been accused of a lack of solidarity by some in the leadership fo the EU. The Hungarian government has been particularly critical of those in Brussels who have argued about solidarity.
Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs replied to the EU elites in September writing, “The distorted narrative that is spun from Brussels attempts to convince European citizens that somehow European solidarity should be connected to accepting migrants, many of whom have crossed illegally into the territory of the EU.”
Kovacs also argued that Hungary had funded EUR 883.2 million from its own budget in order to protect the EU external borders.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has consistently argued against mass migration, said Thursday that the new injection of cash will also go toward helping control illegal migration from Libya.
The EU, along with Italy have funnelled money into Libya to help train coastguard recruits and some allege that the Italians have even paid local warlords to stop the influx of migrants.
All four Visegrad group countries continue to refuse to participate in the EU’s migrant redistribution scheme with Prime Minister Fico noting, “Quotas do not work, they are ineffective, the decision on quotas really divided the European Union.”