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EU Migrant Quota Plan Faces Legal Challenge

Slovakia s Prime Minister Robert Fico was among those who insisted he would not accept the “diktat” from Brussels.

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European Union ministers during an emergency meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on Tuesday adopted “by larger majority” of member states a plan to relocate 120,000 migrants.

Fico expects the decision of the interior ministers to significantly influence the EU summit scheduled for September 23, he said at the session of the European affairs parliamentary committee.

European Union leaders are preparing for what is predicted to be a tense showdown in Brussels at a one-day extraordinary summit to discuss the refugee crisis.

Britain has an opt out from the compulsory quotas but David Cameron has faced criticism for not doing enough to help the crisis. They also called for stronger measures to distinguish refugees fleeing war and persecution from economic migrants leaving safe countries in hope of a better life.

“We have been refusing this nonsense from the beginning, and as a sovereign country we have the right to sue”.

Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic all voted against the quota plan to share out refugees from Italy, Greece and Hungary.

The issue must now be ratified by member state leaders at a meeting Wednesday.

In an email message, Sobotka said Wednesday: “Even though I don’t like the use of the quotas, I don’t agree with them and we voted against them, Europe must not fall apart over solving the migrant crisis”.

Mr Cameron has said they will come from refugee camps in countries neighbouring Syria such as Lebanon and Jordan.

“For this reason I don’t want to further escalate tensions through lawsuits”.

A headline in business daily Hospodarske Noviny, said: “The Germans won a blitzkrieg”.

Although in the weeks since, tens of thousands of more migrants and refugees have arrived in the EU, the European Commission’s mathematical “key” on redistribution based on GDP and population size, and other factors is no long under consideration, an EU contact told EUobserver – meaning the mandatory quota idea is “dead”.

Fico, a lawyer trained during the communist regime and a former Communist Party member, has in fact a solid left-wing background.

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“But rancor remained over a contentious proposal to resettle 120,000 refugees across the continent “” barely a quarter of the total number of asylum seekers who have already crossed into Europe this year.

A boy pushes against a police barricade as Syrian migrants march along the highway towards the Turkish Greek border at Edirne