October 1994 Volume 1 Number 4

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A new report released by the Czech government on September 12 says that there were 77,688 foreigners with long-term or permanent residence in the republic last year. About 18,000 more received permanent or long-term residency the first part of 1994. There were only 5,000 requests for refugee status since 1990.

In the first six months of 1994, 620 refugee requests were made, primarily from citizens of Bulgaria and countries of the former Soviet Union. Only 63 were granted refugee status. The Interior Ministry has 14 humanitarian centers which accommodated 1,417 people at the end of June, 1994. Half of those with temporary asylum in the Republic are children under 16 or people over 55. A total of 14,350 illegal immigrants were discovered or arrested in the first half of the year. Nearly 90 percent of the illegal immigrants come from the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania. Entrance into the Czech Republic at the 109 border crossings was denied to 35,738 foreigners.

The Czech Interior Minister says that it is vital that a Czech-German readmission agreement be drawn up or the republic "could turn into a rubbish pool for the countries participating in the Schengen Agreement." The agreement is expected to be signed after the October 16th German parliamentary elections. The Czech Republic expects about 60 million marks ($93 million US) over three years beginning in 1995, to help mitigate the effects of immigration, improve the border police's technical equipment, and set up a central data system for the foreigners' police and asylum department.

The Interior Minister says that the accord draws attention to the need for a Pan-European system of returning illegal immigrants to their country of origin. He adds that historically, Germany has acted as Europe's buffer because of its location, but with the signing of the Schengen Agreement, the buffer moves to the East, toward the Czech Republic and Poland.

The Czech government does not expect the number illegal immigrants returned from Germany to be significant. In the first half of 1994, 1,500 were returned. The first half of 1993 saw 19,000 returned, and 11,000 were returned in the second half of the year.

The agreement between Germany and the Czech Republic will change the readmission time from the former seven days to six months. That means that illegal immigrants found further in the interior of Germany can be returned. The Czech Republic would like to sign an agreement with Hungary and Slovakia so that it can return immigrants to those countries. Germany signed such an agreement in September with Bulgaria.


"Report on Immigration for the First Half of 1993," CTK National News Wire, September 12, 1994. "Pan-European Readmission system in Czech Vital Interest," CTK National News Wire, September 12, 1994. CTK National News Wire, September 8, 1994. "Germany Signs Repatriation Agreement with Bulgaria," Reuters, September 9, 1994.