An anti-migrants rally on September 12, 2015 in Prague | MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images Timmermans: Central Europe has ‘no experience with diversity’ Commission Vice President warned of the spread of far-right parties.

Central European countries have "no experience with diversity," European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said Thursday, making them susceptible to fears about Muslim refugees.

If no sustainable solution is found "you will see a surge of the extreme right across the European continent," Timmermans said on BBC Radio 4, following a summit Wednesday where EU leaders agreed a range of measures to tackle the migrant crisis.

"We should know more about Central European history," he said. "Knowing that they were isolated for generations, that they were under oppression by Moscow for so long, that they have no experience with diversity in their society, and it creates fear in the society."

Timmermans said that fear had been exploited by politicians like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has held a hard line against the influx of migrants into his country.

Orbán wrote an op-ed this month for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he said: “We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim ... Is it not worrying that Europe’s Christian culture is already barely able to maintain its own set of Christian values?”

Slovakian interior ministry spokesperson Ivan Metik said last month: “We don’t have any mosques in Slovakia so how can Muslims be integrated if they are not going to like it here?”

“Muslims would not be accepted because they would not feel at home,” Metik added.

Timmermans, in the BBC interview, said Central Europe must adapt to the demographic changes.

"Any society, anywhere in the world, will be diverse in the future — that’s the future of the world," Timmermans said. "So [Central European countries] will have to get used to that. They need political leaders who have the courage to explain that to their population instead of playing into the fears as I’ve seen Mr Orbán doing in the last couple of months."