Hungarian govenment: Croatia letting down EU, Hungary

Budapest, September 19 (MTI) – Croatia is letting down not only Hungary but also the European Union, too, and it has a duty to meet its legal obligations, Hungary’s government spokesman told a news conference in Mohacs, southern Hungary, on Saturday.

Zoltan Kovacs said that the Croatian authorities are continually transporting illegal migrants to the Hungarian border while Hungary is fulfilling its tasks which it is bound by, and it will continue to do so.

“We are registering and providing care for illegal migrants who arrive here,” he said.

The prime minister’s domestic security advisor, Gyorgy Bakondi, said that the first line of defence along the Croatia-Hungary border had been put in place along 41 kilometers, but building the fence proper would be harder than it had been on the Hungary-Serbia border due to the more challenging terrain.

Bakondi said that on Friday police had rounded up 288 people who had illegally crossed the Serbian border whereas at official crossings on the Croatian border over 8,000 migrants had arrived by bus and were taken to registration and collection points. Those who were disinclined to be registered travelled in the direction of Austria, he added.

On Saturday, 108 illegal migrants were apprehended on the Serbian border, he said, adding that it had been possible to open the border station of Asotthalm, and if the Serbian authorities can guarantee that there is not disruption to transport and border security then Hungary is prepared to negotiate on opening the other border crossing stations, too.

By 10am today 2,900 migrants had arrived on the Croatia-Hungary border, 1,800 by train. So altogether 11,000 migrants have entered Hungarian territory since Friday, Bakondi said.

Since January, fully 209,000 illegal entries have been registered and 172,801 have lodged asylum requests. Since Sept. 15, when Hungary introduced more stringent regulations, the authorities have launched criminal procedures against 133 people. There are 1,068 migrants staying in reception centres, he said.

Migrants are “flocking” to Croatia from Serbia, so it is not possible to calculate whether the “flood” will stop within a short space of time, Bakondi said.

Responding to a question about the reported disarming of Croatian police, the government spokesman said that witness photo and video recordings show that the Croatian police escorting migrants had arrived with weapons and these were not on them at a later point. “This has to be investigated; let’s not speculate …”, he said

He said the transport of migrants had taken place without agreement between the Croatian and Hungarian authorities and the suspicion of a number of crimes arise in connection with illegal border crossings by armed officers endangering the safety of rail transport.

Kovacs also told journalists that Hungarian police had not used rubber truncheons at the Roszke border station. Police had employed legal and proportionate means to counter the attack, he added.

“Charges concerning what happened there are most absurd, disingenuous falsifications …” he said.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters