The Visegrád Four countries’ lack of solidarity in migration management raises the question whether these countries should be members of the Schengen area, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told journalists at a European Union summit on Friday.
“By stubbornly, repeatedly, systematically refusing to show a minimum of solidarity, these countries automatically open the political debate about the Schengen area, they in fact open the question of their own place in the Schengen area,” Michel said. “The point I am making is being supported by more and more people around the table,” he said.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel at the December 14 EU summit
The Schengen area – named after the Luxembourg town the agreement was signed in 1985 – comprises 22 member states of the European Union that have effectively abolished passport and border controls between their inner borders. Four more member states – Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania – are also obliged to join the area as soon as they fulfill criteria, pertaining to the control of external borders.
At the same summit Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that in a stormy debate on the issue of migration a last attempt to force rules on how migration should be managed has been averted.
