Czech finance minister: NATO should be engaged in guarding EU against migrants

PRAGUE – The Czech Republic's finance minister has called for NATO to get involved in helping protect the European Union's external border against the influx of migrants.

Andrej Babis says "we have to defend the Schengen (borderless) zone. We have to engage NATO."

Talking on Czech public television on Tuesday, Babis called the migrants, most of whom are fleeing bloody conflicts, "the biggest threat to Europe."

Unlike some other EU states, the Czech Republic has not been significantly hit by the recent wave of asylum-seekers, though numbers have been on the rise.

In June, the Czech Republic was one of the countries that helped block a proposed plan for EU member countries to take in set numbers of the refugees arriving in the EU.