Interior Minister to ask for 15-day extension for border checks

Interior Minister Vít Rakušan will ask the government on Thursday to extend border controls with Slovakia for another 15 days, the Czech News Agency reported on Friday. Mr. Rakušan said his ministry does not want to extend the situation for an unduly long time as they want to be able to re-evaluate at regular intervals. Moreover, without the consent of the European Union, Czechia can only have border checks for a maximum of two months, meaning that for an extension beyond November 28, Czechia would have to request approval from the European Commission.

Czechia introduced checks at the border with Slovakia at the end of September due to a recent influx of refugees, mainly from Syria, who use Czechia as a transit stop on their way to Germany or other EU countries. The government has already extended the controls once, until October 28.

According to the border agency Frontex, the number of migrants who illegally entered the EU via the so-called Balkan route increased by 170 percent year-on-year from January to September. In the first nine months of this year, 228,000 refugees were detained at the EU's external border without a permit, the most for this period since 2016.