Hungary paying price for EU not needing internal border protection

The finance minister said in an interview with news portal Index published on Monday that Hungary is the EU member state paying the price for eliminating the need for border protection within the bloc.

Mihály Varga told the portal that as the minister in charge of the central budget, he had turned to the EU’s budget and administration commissioner, asking Johannes Hahn in a letter late last year for greater EU contribution to Hungary’s increased spending on border protection, which had received “a positive reaction”.

“The commissioner accepted my invitation to visit the border region in the first half of this year,” Varga said. “But what we are seeing now is a constant backing out” by the outgoing commissioner, who, Varga said, had proposed that their talks should instead focus on the priorities of Hungary’s EU presidency.

In response, the finance ministry accepted that Hungary’s presidency should be the basis for talks, indicating, however, to Hahn that stopping illegal migration was also among the key topics on its agenda in addition to the EU’s competitiveness and demography issues, Varga said. He said the commissioner had then canceled his visit.

“We created a clear situation which the commissioner no longer wanted to face, and in the last minute, he abandoned finding a solution to a serious problem for Hungary,” he said.

Varga said Hungary bearing the burden of the EU’s border protection costs violated the principles of solidarity and the fair share of responsibility within the bloc. He said that

instead of an 80 billion forint fine, Hungary should receive a 700 billion forint (EUR 1.8bn) compensation for its expenditures.

The minister said the situation was unfair and a severe burden on the state budget, noting that the country’s border protection spending was “insignificant” compared to the 67 trillion forints earmarked for total expenditure on the EU’s expected budget this year.

Asked whether Hungary’s EU presidency could “bring a turnaround” in settling the issue of Hungary’s border protection spending, Varga said it might come up at Ecofin meetings scheduled for the autumn.

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