Lower than 24 hours after asserting a “large” deployment of police and armed forces on the border with Hungary to curb unlawful migration, the brand new Slovak authorities known as it off, saying it was a “one-off measure.”
The newly elected Slovak authorities says it’ll recall lots of of law enforcement officials and troopers who had been despatched to strengthen the border with Hungary – only a day after their deployment was initially introduced.
The coalition authorities, which was established solely final week, introduced on Monday a “large” deployment of police and armed forces on the border to forestall the rising variety of migrants from coming into its territory from the neighbouring nation.
Prime Minister Robert Fico mentioned the measure was justified to cease individuals doubtlessly linked to “terrorist” teams from coming into Slovakia by way of the 655-kilometre frontier with Hungary and that the deployment would have began in a while that very same day.
Fico added that 46,000 undocumented migrants entered Slovakia because the starting of the 12 months.
However solely in the future later the federal government backtracked on the measure, saying it was a “one-off motion aimed to obviously present that Slovakia isn’t a protected haven for migrants, particularly for smugglers,” as Inside Minister Matus Sutaj Estok advised reporters.
Former International Minister Miroslav Wlachovsky criticised the “grandiose spectacle… of public relations coverage” on social media, whereas opposition chief Michal Simecka mentioned: “the present theatre on the border solely leads to losing our nation’s funds and human capability.”
Slovakia’s present coalition authorities is shaped by Fico’s left-wing, populist leaning and anti-refugees group Smer-SD, who joined forces with the far-right, pro-Russian SNS and Hlas-SD, a breakaway get together from Smer.
On 5 October, the earlier Slovak authorities resumed random checks on the border with Hungary, a day after neighbouring nations like Austria, Czechia and Poland reintroduced controls at their borders with Slovakia to curb migration.
Then-Slovak Prime Minister Ludovit Odor criticised the neighbours’ border controls on the time, saying it might be preferable to discover a Europe-wide answer to the issue of migrants.