Gabčíkovo question up to Government

It's the Government's responsibility to respond to the results of Sunday's referendum in Gabčíkovo (Trnava region), in which the locals overwhelmingly (97 percent) disagreed with the temporary placing of 500 asylum seekers from Austria into a Slovak Technical University dorm, President Andrej Kiska said on Thursday. Kiska thus reacted to the results of the referendum, stating that if such a referendum took place anywhere in Slovakia it would have yielded a similar outcome. As opposed to several Opposition parties, Kiska didn't call on the Government to respect the referendum's results. "I want to state clearly that the Government has my full support in meeting the commitments that it has made in this issue," Kiska said in reference to the agreement with Austria on providing shelter and food on a temporary basis to 500 immigrants, whose asylum procedures will still be dealt with by Austria. According to Kiska, the result of the referendum is a consequence of several mistakes, including how the issue has been debated on the Slovak political scene. "Let's stop lending the impression that a cultural and social disaster is looming large if we do what's being expected from Slovakia as a partner in the EU - i.e. if we provide actual help to a small group of refugees and a temporary help to a few hundred [asylum seekers] from Austria," Kiska said. The president further stated that the thousands of foreigners with various cultural and ethnic backgrounds who have come to Slovakia in the past 25 years don't feature in a higher crime rate or other threats.