Lazar: V4 prepare for cooperation on border protection

Budapest, October 1 (MTI) – The Visegrad Group countries are taking steps to prepare for common border protection, the government office chief Janos Lazar told a regular government press briefing on Thursday.

Preparations for cooperation on border policing are ongoing, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been taking appropriate diplomatic steps, the minister said, adding that the solidarity shown by the V4 on the migration issue was of “exceptional significance”.

Speaking about Croatia, Lazar said that if Zagreb is incapable of living up to its obligations to register migrants, then this raises serious doubts about its qualification to be a member of the European Union and the Schengen zone.

The Hungarian government supports Slovakian opposition to the European Union’s proposal for a quota system for distributing migrants and hotspots, Lazar said.

The arson and skirmishes in German refugee camps are worrying, Lazar told the news conference. If Austria and Germany request a corridor for migrants, this will be taken as an invitation similar to earlier announcements targeting Syrian refugees, he said.

Lazar said the legal border freeze has not caused court cases to soar. There have been 351 criminal procedures launched against illegal entrants, 293 of which have been brought to court and in 279 cases the court has already passed a sentence finding the defendants guilty. Appeals were only filed in 14 cases. He noted that in the past week this year’s 300,000th migrant had come to Hungary’s border.