Visegrad Group 'won't be blackmailed' over EU migration policy

The leaders of Visegrad Group members – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Czechia, said that they won't be blackmailed by threats of blocking the EU funds if they don't participate in the relocation of thousands of refugees from the Middle East. Claiming that such decision should be a sovereign one. Last week, European Commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos warned that member states that won't host the refugees might have their EU funding cut. “Poland and the Visegrad Group will never agree to this blackmail or to such conditions to be dictated,” Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło said after the V4 meeting. The CEE countries are not the only ones, looking not to participate in the EU relocation plan. Austria also said it will seek an exemption from having to accept more asylum-seekers, arguing that it has already taken in its fair share during Europe's migration crisis. Fewer than 14,500 asylum-seekers, out of 160,000 covered by the EU plan have been relocated so far from Greece and Italy. The two year plan expires in September. In total, some 1.6 million refugees, mostly from Syria, reached the EU between 2014-16.