The EU has launched a legal case against Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland over their tough stance on taking in asylum seekers.

The Hungarian and Polish governments have long refused to take in migrants under a 2015 relocation plan, which was agreed by qualified majority.

The Czechs have taken in twelve.

“It is binding and mandatory for all member states to comply and implement according to the pledges they gave. The sanctions have somehow being defined by the infringement procedures without getting into details about what kind of sanctions that will be. But we can avoid it,” said EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopolous

Jacek Saryus-Wolski, a centre right POlish MEP, urged the EU to rethink.

“I think we have to sit together and agree and in a much more consensual way then enforcing on some member states decisions by other states who want to get rid of their problems while not recognizing and respecting the problems of others. This is not at all in the spirit of solidarity,” he said.

The European Commission went ahead with this decision without waiting for the verdict from the European Court of Justice, reports Isabel Marques da Silva in Strasbourg.

The court should deliver its first opinion in early July, our correspondent adds.