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.

Lazar said the new barrier fence on the Croatian border with Hungary has been completed along 78km and 38km sections. The government must build a fence because “that’s the only message the organisers of migration understand,” he said.

Lazar insisted that there was “organised action” taking place against Hungary.

He accused the EU of “practising moral imperialism” when it came to Hungary’s border fence. He said the barrier had a function and “we did not set it up for fun”.

The minister said that Orban would present the standpoint at a summit of prime ministers in mid-October that aid should be directed to crisis zones, and if a country wants to accept migrants this should be respected. “But we cannot understand why we must also accept them just because others need migrants,” he said, adding this position does not coincide with that of financier Gyorgy Soros, who “bombards international public opinion with his plans for global renewal, obviously in the spirit of altruism in countries where it is apparent that his activities over the past 30 years have resulted in their bankruptcy.”

Photo: MTI

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