Poland, Hungary slam EU migration policy

Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz on Friday accused the European Union of having “double standards” amid criticism of his country’s migration policies from Brussels, and called on countries facing similar criticism to take common defensive action.

Czaputowicz was speaking at a meeting in Greece, where regional EU foreign ministers met to discuss energy cooperation, and the bloc's expansion before a summit next week in Bulgaria.

The talks in a resort south of Athens brought together ministers from the so-called Visegrad Group — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary — and Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia.

While noting that attitudes towards Poland from other European capitals and "elites" have improved, Czaputowicz called on countries in central and eastern Europe to “stay together,” in an apparent retort against Brussels’ criticisms of EU members’ treatment of migrants and refugees. 

Visegrad Group members strongly object to EU immigration policies, and resent criticism over the rule of the law in their countries from many EU partners.

"We have common interests, we cannot accept double standards within the European Union, and we have to defend our cause," Czaputowicz told The Associated Press news agency. 

On the sidelines of the same meeting, Hungary's foreign minister Peter Szijjarto told the AP that Europe remains threatened by unchecked immigration and must focus on stopping it.

Szijjarto said that the EU should screen asylum-seekers in camps created outside its own borders, which he said the bloc should be able to police more efficiently.

"The European Union is defenceless from the south and from the southeast," Szijjarto said. 

Hungary is strongly critical of EU immigration policies, has built border fences to keep migrants out and rejects the bloc's obligatory quota system for taking in asylum-seekers.

Greece is a major gateway to the EU for asylum-seekers, and has seen increasing arrivals in recent months, three years after the mass influx of about a million people.

"We should not speak about how to encourage migration, how to manage migration, we should speak about how to stop the migratory flows," Szijjarto said. "Because if the migratory flows continue then that would pose a significant security threat [to] Europe."