Austrian: The government requests the House to extend the state of emergency
Updates: 03/20/2022 14:03
Released: 20.03.2022, 12:30
Prague – Government requests for extension of the state of emergency to manage the influx of refugees. This was stated by Deputy Prime Minister Vít Rakušan (STAN) in the CNN Prima News talk show. According to the South Bohemian governor Martin Kuba (ODS), an emergency situation is necessary in the current situation. The Cabinet declared a state of emergency on March 30. The Austrian reiterated today that there are now around 270,000 war refugees in the Czech Republic. The Interior Ministry has issued over 200,000 visas to tolerate.
“We will come to ask the Chamber of Deputies to extend the state of emergency,” the Austrian said.
Today, he said that according to the original plans, it was expected that about 20,000 refugees would arrive in the Czech Republic in a month. Three weeks after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the number of which exceeded one quarter of a million. Half of the newcomers are children, four-fifths of adults are women, the Interior Ministry repeated today.
The approval of the Chamber of Deputies is required to extend the state of emergency. According to the Austrian government, the government needs this legal framework for crisis management and rapid measures to help newcomers. He mentioned that, for example, it is possible to distribute refugees between regions or visas can also be processed by police officers. The Deputy Prime Minister stressed that the new situation will not affect him now and will not affect the people even after a possible extension. “I can’t imagine not prolonging the state of emergency,” the Austrian said. He thinks that the previous government of Andrej Babiš (ANO) overused the state of emergency during the covid epidemic, which is why this measure has a bad reputation in the Czech Republic due to the emergency situation. The state of emergency in the last two years has been valid for a total of 284 days, most recently ending on the night of December 26 last Christmas.
According to the head of the regional association and the South Bohemian governor Martin Kuba, an extension of the state of emergency will be necessary. “It is a legislative framework that will allow some things to be done more quickly. Our legislation is rigid in many respects,” the governor said.
According to the head of its parliamentary club, Radim Fiala, the SPD movement does not support the extension. “We have always been against a state of emergency, at the time of the time and now. The state of emergency gives the government powers that we do not yet need,” said Fiala. According to the Austrian, there will certainly be a discussion in the Chamber of Deputies when discussing the extension request.