Migration still a threat, says Hungarian ministry official

The threat posed by migration has not gone away, interior ministry state secretary Károly Kontrát told a session of parliament’s defence and law enforcement committee on Thursday.

The Balkan route is still active, with 70,000 migrants making their way to Europe through there, Kontrát said. In Greece, there are currently 14,000 migrants waiting to continue their journey, he said, adding that a further 4 million people are on a standby in Turkey.

Hungary, he said, was one of the safest countries, thanks in large part to the imposition of a state of emergency linked to the crisis of mass migration.

Kontrát argued that the state of emergency should therefore be extended.

Police chief János Balogh told the committee that whereas in 2018 there was a daily average of 18 attempts at illegal entry into Hungary, this has increased to an average of 27 in 2019. This means migration is on the rise, he said.

Zsuzsanna Végh, director-general of the immigration and asylum office, said the number of registered asylum seekers had only declined by about 10 percent in the EU in recent years, while in some countries it has increased.

The opposition Socialist Party’s Tamás Harangozó and Ágnes Vadai of the leftist Democratic Coalition asked how it was possible that “people were being starved” in the transit zones at Hungary’s borders.