Interior Minister Sutaj Estok Offers Spain Officers to Help Protect Border

Bratislava/Brussels, 4 August (TASR) - Either the European Union's external borders are protected, or border checks, traffic queues and waiting times will return, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok declared after an extraordinary EU meeting on the situation in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Sutaj Estok added that he's expressed Slovakia's solidarity with Spain and offered Slovak police officers and equipment to help protect the border. The video-conference was convened at the request of more than 20 EU-member states, including Slovakia. The Slovak minister said that he'd presented Slovakia's position and specific proposals for tackling illegal migration to his counterparts. "I told my colleagues the same thing that I say at home. The choice is very simple: either we protect Europe's external borders, or border checks, queues and waiting times between Schengen member states will return," he stated in a video posted on Facebook. According to Sutaj Estok, the migration crisis in Ceuta, where tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco late last week, demonstrated the consequences of unclear rules. "All it took was one Spanish court ruling on returns. Smugglers turned it into an advertisement and spread it across Africa via social media: 'Come to Ceuta and you will stay in Europe'," he said. The minister claimed that Spain responded in the way that Slovakia has long advocated by deploying police and the military, strengthening border protection and returning migrants to Morocco. "And the outcome was clear. Not a single attempted illegal entry since Friday. Not a single asylum application. Clear rules work, but borders aren't protected by ministers' video-conferences, they are protected on the ground," said Sutaj Estok. He added that he found the outcome of the ministers' meeting encouraging. "Until recently, we were being 'lectured' in Brussels when we spoke about strict border protection and returning illegal migrants to Africa. I'm pleased that similar views were expressed today by several colleagues. Perhaps Europe is finally beginning to learn something," he said. Earlier, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said that 72,000 migrants from Morocco had entered Ceuta late last week, with about 70,000 of them having already returned home. mf/df