Schengen

Hungary to protect borders ‘under all circumstances’, says foreign minister in Belgrade

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Hungary will protect its borders “under all circumstances” and will not let in any illegal migrants, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said after talks with Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic in Belgrade on Monday.

“For us the security of the country and the Hungarian people comes first,” he said.

The talks focused on border protection as well as the situation in Turkey and Syria,

Szijjártó said. He said that developments at the Turkey-Greece border were worrying and suggested that hundreds of thousands of migrants could soon arrive in the Western Balkans.

Szijjártó said he had phoned his Greek counterpart and assured Greece of Hungary’s support. “Hungary knows what it is like when the country’s borders are under an organised attack … while the international liberal media is churning out fake news”.

The current situation also highlights the importance of the European integration of the Western Balkans, Szijjártó said, arguing that “the further south Europe’s defence lines are, the better”. He urged the EU to speed up its accession talks with Serbia, saying that the country was ready to open up five new chapters in those negotiations. Szijjártó called on the EU’s Croatian presidency to give its consent to the accession talks.

Szijjártó also had talks with Serbia’s European affairs minister Jadranka Joksimovic.

At a joint press conference after the talks, both ministers spoke highly of bilateral ties, both in political and economic terms, and called Hungary and Serbia strategic partners. Joksimovic also thanked Hungary for its continued support to her country’s endeavours to join the EU.

We won’t allow any migrants here, says Hungarian foreign minister

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Hungary has protected its borders and will continue to do so, Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said on Facebook on Sunday after speaking to his Greek counterpart Nicos Dendias by phone.

Dendias briefed Szijjártó on the situation at the Turkish-Greek border and the crackdown by Greek border guards against violent illegal migrants.

Szijjártó said

he supported formally convening a special meeting of EU foreign ministers to discuss the situation.

The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has proposed convening a special Foreign Affairs Council meeting next week at Greece’s initiative.

“We Hungarians know what it’s like for our border to be systematically attacked … while in parallel the international liberal media spread fake news,” Szijjártó said.

“We won’t allow any migrants here. I assured my Greek colleague of this,” he added.

The UN says more than 10,000 migrants have gathered at the Turkish-Greek border after Turkey said it would no longer detain asylum seekers in the country. The Greek government has accused the Turkish authorities of actively helping migrants to reach the border.

Hungarian authorities prepared to tackle increased migration pressure, says official

Hungarian authorities are prepared to tackle an increasing migration pressure along the country’s southern borders “to ensure the security of Hungarian citizens by all means”, the head of parliament’s defence and law enforcement committee said after a meeting of the body on Wednesday.

Participants in the meeting discussed developments at the Röszke border station, where a group of 50-60 illegal migrants attempted forced entry into Hungary on January 28, Lajos Kósa told reporters.

“It was clearly an organised action, a deliberate provocation” probably aimed at “sending the message that the Schengen area could be accessed via Hungary”,

Kósa said, and added that similar attempts could be expected in the future.

Kósa said that

Hungary’s border with Serbia was facing increased pressure of migration because Croatian authorities were “extremely strict” with illegal entrants and migrants now tend to find other ways to get into the European Union.

Kósa also said that Hungarian authorities had apprehended four times as many human smugglers in the past six weeks than during the same period last year.

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Read alsoOrbán cabinet: Europe-bound migrants change path

Orbán cabinet: Europe-bound migrants change path

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The route used by irregular migrants to reach Europe has changed in recent weeks, the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Chief Security Advisor György Bakondi said here on Wednesday.

“Instead of the usual route (Bosnia-Croatia-Slovenia), migrants arrive via Serbia to the Hungarian border or to the Hungarian-Serbian-Romanian border,” Bakondi said on public television channel M1.

“We can come to the conclusion that the human smugglers are also active and are constantly testing the border control system together with the migrants,” he said.

More than 4,100 people have attempted to cross the Hungarian border this year, a significant increase from last year or from the previous years, Bakondi said.

The migrants “try to cut through, climb or dig under the fence, or hide in different vehicles in order to enter the country,” he said.

After the 2015 migrant crisis, the Hungarian government had a fence built along the southern border of the country to stop the flow of refugees.

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Read alsoOrbán cabinet: Some 100,000 migrants gathered along Hungary southern border

Entrants to Hungary checked for coronavirus at major border crossings

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The Hungarian police and the National Ambulance Service (OMSZ) are checking travellers entering Hungary for coronavirus at six major border crossings across the country, the spokesman of the national police force said on Tuesday.

Kristóf Gál told a press conference at the border crossing at Tompa, on the Hungary-Serbia border, that

the crossings at Ártánd, Csanádpalota, Röszke, Tompa, Udvar and Letenye are also entry points into the Schengen area.

Experience shows that most busses taking Chinese tourists to Hungary cross at these points, Gál said.

Their temperature is being taken and those with a fever will be isolated and, if necessary, sent to a hospital with the facilities to receive them, Gál said.

Police are providing protective gear and disinfectants at all border crossings in the country, Gál said.

Budapest Airport is checking the temperatures of passengers of all flights from China, he noted.

Criminal proceedings under way in Hungary against 5 migrants detained

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Criminal proceedings have been launched against five migrants detained after illegally crossing the Serbia-Hungary border early on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Csongrád County police said on Wednesday.

The suspects entered the country when some 60 migrants made an attempt to break through the southern border fence at Röszke, at 5.20am and 5.30am on Tuesday. The police said on their website that

an armed guard on duty fired three warning shots before patrols arrived at the scene.

Police arrested some who had crossed and prevented others from getting through.

The five men, two Syrian nationals aged 26 and 29, two 26-year-old Palestinian nationals and an Algerian national aged 25, were arrested near the border, Szilvia Szabó told MTI.

At their questioning the suspects admitted to crossing the border, she said.

Migrants try to break through Hungarian border fence at Röszke – UPDATE

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Around 60 migrants early on Tuesday made an attempt to break through the southern border fence at Röszke, on the Serbia-Hungary border, according to public television.

Current affairs channel M1 reported that a small number of migrants managed to cross the border.

Police stopped all vehicles at checkpoints when it became apparent that migrants had spread out in all directions, M1’s correspondent said.

The police said on their website that an armed guard on duty fired several warning shots before patrols arrived at the scene.

It added that

the illegal attempt to cross the border took place at around 5.30am.

Several members of the group who entered Hungary were arrested while police prevented others from getting through, the statement said.

Csongrád County Police Headquarters told MTI that

60 people stormed the border en-masse and a border guard fired three warning shots.

Four arrests were made and the area was closed down, the spokesperson said. Whereas the road border crossing was not operating, traffic on the motorway border crossing was unaffected.

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Horgos/Röszke. Photo: MTI
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Photo: MTI
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Photo: MTI

UPDATE

Károly Papp, the interior ministry’s director general for public security, told the same press conference that groups of migrants had made illegal entry attempts at the Roszke 2 crossing in two waves, at 5.20am and next at 5.30am.

Police arrested four migrants, he said, adding that legal proceedings have been launched against them.

György Bakondi, the prime minister’s chief domestic security adviser, said the Serbia-Hungary border had come under serious pressure recently, with 3,400 illegal entry attempts made so far this month.

Number of illegal migrants entering Hungary doubled in 2019

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Last year the number of illegal entrants to Hungary grew by 2.6 times compared to 2018, the leader of the Hungarian police’s border patrol forces said on Monday.

Speaking at a press conference on the state of illegal migration to Hungary, László Balázs said migration pressure was particularly strong at the end of the year,

with some 1,400 migrants arriving in Hungary between December 16 and 22.

Another 803 were apprehended between January 1 and 5, 2020, he said.

Illegal migration was on the rise everywhere along the border of the Schengen area,

especially on the Serbian and Romanian border sections, Balázs said.

Brigadier-General László Garas of the Hungarian Armed Forces said the number of soldiers serving on the borders had been doubled over the past few days.

Drones and helicopters are also deployed in reconnaissance, he said.

Orbán’s security advisor: Frontex gradually beefed up at border

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The European Frontex border agency is being beefed up and its staff are helping countries guard their borders, György Bakondi, the Prime Minister’s security adviser told public television in an interview on Wednesday.

Bakondi noted that once the Regulation on the European Border and Coast Guard is enforced with the aim of better protecting the EU’s external borders, Frontex will be enlarged over several years to 10,000 personnel.

He underlined

Hungary’s standpoint on migration in terms of its rejection of mandatory quotas for relocating migrants, securing the EU’s external borders and deporting people who are in Europe illegally.

Bakondi said the Italian government had broken its election promises and had withdrawn strict measures enacted by Matteo Salvini, the former deputy PM and interior minister, and ships carrying African migrants were arriving non-stop.

In a later interview to public radio, he said

the pressure of migration on the Hungary-Croatia and Hungary-Romania borders had grown significantly, with hundreds on their way to those borders.

Also, attempts are being made to cross from Ukraine, he added.

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Read alsoOrbán cabinet: Illegal migration situation similar to 2015

Orbán, Sarec discuss migration, aid to Africa

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Hungary and Slovenia are both “well aware of what migration and illegal border crossings mean”, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Monday in Budapest, after talks with Marjan Sarec, his Slovenian counterpart.

“We both know what it means when masses attempt to cross our borders and transit our countries illegally,” he said. “We know what it’s like when they’re not coming to us but just want to pass through and we know what it’s like when the law, national interests and the humaneness of handling things the right way are in conflict with one another.”

Hungary and Slovenia are planning to deliver medical equipment to Africa together, “in line with the idea that we should not import trouble but take the help where it’s needed,” he said.

Hungary is “very sympathetic” towards Slovenia’s efforts to defend its borders, Orbán said.

He said there were 96,000 migrants currently navigating the Balkan migration route on their way to western Europe. Orbán added, however, that it was impossible to tell whether they would try to make their way to Hungary or to Slovenia via Croatia.

Hungary, however, has a “heartland” together with the Visegrad Group, Orbán said, adding that the V4 had an agreement that if the migration pressure on Hungary were to suddenly increase, the Czech Republic, Poland and Sloviakia would send patrol units to the Hungarian-Serbian border.

“We’re also ready to cooperate with Slovenia in the most specific and deepest way possible if it serves Slovenia’s interests,” he added.

Regarding the European Union’s enlargement, Orbán said that “now that the EU has botched the decision on starting accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia”, it should at least step up the talks with Serbia “to keep the prospect of [joining] the EU open for the Balkans.”

He noted, at the same time, that some member states believe that the entire enlargement process needed to be rethought.

On the topic of Hungarian-Slovenian relations, Orbán praised the competitiveness of Slovenia’s economy, saying:

“There’s plenty we can pick up and learn from them.”

He said that although bilateral economic cooperation was improving each year, it was expanding at a slower pace than Hungary’s cooperation with the rest of its neighbours.

Hungary’s Eximbank has opened a 165 million euro credit line to promote business ties between Hungarian and Slovenian companies, the prime minister said, adding that Hungary will be a guest of honour at Slovenia’s biggest economic fair next year.

Orbán also said that the Hungarian government has recently transferred 900 million forints (EUR 2.7m) to the Raba region — the area in Hungary with the largest indigenous Slovene population — for the economic development schemes to be carried out there. In addition, the government has so far spent some 2 billion forints on development schemes to be carried out in Slovenia’s Mura region, he said. Concerning the government’s economic development schemes, Orbán said he had proposed to Sarec the establishment of a cross-border regional development fund.

Orbán said the Hungarian government was now spending four and a half times as much on supporting the local Slovene minority community as it had been in 2010.

He said

the expansion of the M70 motorway to the Slovenian-Hungarian border would be completed in mid-December,

adding that the planning phase of the Hungarian section of the Zalaegerszeg-Redics-Lendava railway line was also under way.

Asked about Croatia’s aspirations to join the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone, Orbán said Hungary supported the integration aspirations of all its neighbours, adding, however that Hungary had “special interests” concerning the Hungarian-Croatian border section. In this regard, Budapest wants a written agreement with Croatia that if Hungary were to face a significant inflow of migrants from that direction, then it could reinstate not just administrative, bur also physical border control measures along its border with Croatia.

Sarec said

bilateral ties were especially strong in the areas of the economy and tourism, adding that Hungary and Slovenia were cooperating on a number of EU-related matters.

He said his talks with Orbán had focused mainly on the deepening of economic cooperation.

Hungary and Slovenia are in constant dialogue and both want to intensify bilateral relations, Sarec said, underlining the importance of having a neighbour “who understands and respects us”.

He said

Hungarian and Slovene minority groups also had important roles to play in bilateral cooperation, commending the Hungarian government for devoting special attention to the local Slovene communities.

On the topic of migration, Sarec said the best solution would be to improve living conditions in the migrants’ countries origin so as to prevent them from leaving their homelands. He urged the EU to craft a joint policy in this matter.

In response to a question, the prime minister urged dialogue with Turkey. He said Slovenia was preparing for a variety of scenarios as regards Turkey and the migrants it hosts, expressing hope that Turkey and the EU would find a rational solution.

Sarec urged bolstering the border between North Macedonia and Turkey in case Europe were to be flooded by a significant wave of migrants.

Concerning EU enlargement, he said the EU should strive to deepen its ties with Serbia, adding that a stable Western Balkan region was in everyone’s interest.

Minister Palkovics calls for strengthening Hungarian, Slovenian economic ties – UPDATE

Orbán, RMDSZ leader discuss EP election preparations

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán discussed preparations for the upcoming European parliamentary elections with the leader of Romania’s ethnic Hungarian RMDSZ party in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár) on Wednesday.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Hunor Kelemen, Orbán urged ethnic Hungarians in Romania to vote for RMDSZ’s candidates to ensure a stronger representation of Hungarians in Brussels. He said he was optimistic about the election about both his Fidesz party and RMDSZ having “good chances”.

Asked about Fidesz’s membership in the European People’s Party, Orbán said that it was Fidesz that had suggested that it should not exercise its voting rights in the EPP as long as open issues are settled. “We suspended our participation,” he said, and added that “we are not going to wait for the EPP to make a decision, but will go ahead and make one on our own”.

“What matters is not the EPP, but where Fidesz will find its place to appropriately represent Hungarian interests in a new European political situation following the election,”

he said. Fidesz’s decision will fundamentally depend on the direction in which the EPP decides to go, he added.

Orbán said the EPP was preparing to enter into a strategic alliance with the European Left. This was unacceptable, Orbán said, and argued that “the entirety of the European Left has adopted a pro-migration stance”. Meanwhile, he said, stopping migration was the most important issue in central Europe. Orbán said this was the dilemma that would have to be resolved after the election.

The EPP, he suggested, should follow Austria’s model, in which an EPP member made a coalition with a party on its right and “they are governing that country well”.

On another subject, Orbán said that bilateral ties with Serbia and Slovakia were “very good” but added that “it cannot be said about Hungary-Romania relations”. Hungary has recently made “spectacular progress” and the country “uses its increasing economic prowess to improve neighbourly relations”. That is why the Hungarian government has signed several agreements and launched joint projects with Serbia and Slovakia, he said. He voiced hope that a “similarly confidential” relationship could be developed with the Romanian government in the interest of meeting shared goals. He thanked Romania for its “excellent controls” over the EU’s external borders, and said that

Romania has demonstrated that it is worthy of becoming a member of the Schengen system.

Concerning migration, Orbán said that “those that make it clear that migrants should not cross the sea without permits and registration will save lives”. Since Italian deputy PM Matteo Salvini has warned against leaving Africa, the number of migrants and lives lost at sea “has radically decreased”, Orbán said. “This policy has saved more lives than another luring migrants to set off,” he added.

Speaking at the joint press conference with Orbán, RMDSZ head Hunor Kelemen stressed the importance of Transylvania Hungarians being present in the EP. He said both RMDSZ and Fidesz were involved in a campaign, adding that it was natural for the two parties to assist one another.

The RMDSZ leader said strong Hungarian representation in the EP was in the interest of all Hungarians, arguing that the EU was on the verge of changes that concerned all of its citizens.

“A smart person will try to influence change,” he said.

Orbán interview to La Stampa: ‘EPP should work with Salvini’

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said in an interview to Italian newspaper La Stampa that the European People’s Party should work together with the right wing led by Matteo Salvini if it wants to get ahead.

If the EPP nails its colours to the mast of the left wing, however, it will “commit suicide” and “sink”, Orbán said in the interview published on Wednesday.

Ahead of Salvini’s visit to Hungary, the Hungarian prime minister called the Liga party’s leader Europe’s most important figure for “halting migration and transforming the European Union”.

He said the European People’s Party was in decline and the bloc had fewer and fewer prime ministers. From May, the grouping would have fewer mandates, he predicted.

Asked whether the ruling Fidesz party was expecting to be excluded from the formation, Orbán insisted the EPP now faced judgement by the electorate.

“We don’t as yet know what kind of formation Salvini will be able to establish, but let’s hope it is strong,” he said, adding that the EPP should work together with Europe’s right wing.

He said the Salvini-led right wing and Silvio Berlusconi’s party would have key roles.

Salvini, in his capacity as Italy’s deputy PM and interior minister, will be arriving in Hungary on Thursday. A visit to the Röszke border station will be on the agenda.

“He is the hero who stopped migration via the sea, as we did on land,” he said.

Orbán called the Dublin Regulation that sets the first country of arrival as the place to lodge an asylum request “dead”. “It’s a law that no one sticks to,” he said, adding that there was no common European solution to migration. He said a body of Schengen interior ministers similar to the council of EU finance ministers should be set up to find intergovernmental solutions to the issue.

Asked about nationalism, Orbán said he did not share the negative assessment of nationalism.

“The Brussels elite says we are feeding nationalism, but we think that the Brussels elite, by building an empire, is generating a great threat. But fine, let’s leave behind the fight over nationalism-related terminology and write that I’m a patriot.”

Hungary-Bulgaria mixed economic committee held in Budapest

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Hungary considers Bulgaria a crucial player in building infrastructure to ensure gas supplies from the south, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday.

Energy is expected to be the focus of bilateral ties in future, he said after a meeting of the Hungary-Bulgaria mixed economic committee in Budapest, which he co-chairs.

Szijjártó said

the government wants to make gas purchases through the Turkish Stream gas pipeline that traverses Bulgaria and Serbia as early as next year.

The government will make legal and infrastructure preparations before the end of 2019, he added. Bulgaria has launched the necessary infrastructure projects and Hungary will start the capacity contract procedure in September, he said.

Szijjártó noted

the growing importance of southern gas supplies in light of a possible ceasure of supplies via Ukraine as well as plans to exploit natural gas from the Black Sea.

Concerning bilateral business ties, Szijjártó said that the turnover of foreign trade could exceed last year’s over 1.5 billion euros in 2019. Hungary’s Eximbank has set up a credit line of 165 million euros to promote further expansion of that cooperation, he added.

Bulgaria is an important ally not only in the economic but in a political sense, too, Szijjártó said, and argued that “Bulgaria has consistently stood by Hungary in recent months rejecting the global migration pact and has protected Europe from the wave of migrants from the Balkans”.

The Hungarian government, therefore, supports Bulgaria’s integration in the Schengen zone, he said.

Bulgarian economy minister Emil Karanikolov highlighted the two countries’ dynamic bilateral ties and said that no open issues had been raised during the talks. He added that

negotiations concerning the time frame for constructing the gas supply infrastructure would continue.

Bulgaria’s deputy prime minister Nikolova held talks in Budapest

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Unlike Brussels, Hungary and Bulgaria believe that the answer to demographic challenges is family support rather than migration, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday after talks with Bulgaria’s deputy prime minister, Mariana Nikolova.

“We will never allow them to force us change this approach,” Szijjártó told a joint press conference.

He said Hungary and Bulgaria were in agreement regarding the most important issues and Bulgaria continued to be Hungary’s strategic ally in terms of European issues.

Hungary and Bulgaria maintain friendly relations, he said, and it is important to further develop these. The two countries have faced many similar challenges in the recent period and have given similar responses to them, he added.

Both countries faced economic, security and demographic challenges and the responses by both governments have been successful, he said. The two governments are in agreement that migration is not the right response to demographic challenges, and these should be solved through family support, Szijjártó said. Increasingly value-added jobs are being created in Hungary, and last year was the first time that the rate of Hungarians returning from abroad outpaced emigrant workers, he added.

Hungary and Bulgaria are also in agreement that it is every state’s responsibility to protect its own borders and guarantee the security of its citizens. The protection of external borders is a priority for both countries, he said. Bulgaria employs serious border protection infrastructure to protect the EU’s external border and Hungary does the same, he added. Building a fence has proven a successful response to security challenges in both countries, he added.

Szijjártó noted that Bulgaria is not a Schengen member, and he lamented that despite the fact that Bulgaria has been able to protect its borders, it has been denied membership of the area. At the same time, there are Schengen member states that have been unable to protect their borders, he added.

Cooperation between Hungary and Bulgaria in border protection will be maintained, Szijjártó said.

Last year, 44 Hungarian police served on the Bulgarian-Turkish border and Hungary also provided technical help for Bulgaria, he added.

Neither Bulgaria nor Hungary voted in support of the United Nations Global Migration Compact because it carries the threat of further waves of migrants, he said.

Meanwhile, Szijjártó said it was important that Hungarian companies carry out significant investments abroad. OTP Bank is poised to become one of the largest players on the Bulgarian market and pharmaceuticals company Richter is involved in increasingly widespread activities. Cooperation between Hungarian and Bulgarian companies has been helped by a 165 million euro credit line offered by Eximbank, he added.

Concerning talks about the next seven-year EU budget, both Hungary and Bulgaria insist that cohesion resources should continue to play an important role, he said.

Nikolova said

Hungary was an important partner, and she expressed thanks for the support Bulgaria received from Hungary for its Schengen membership endeavours, as well as help to stop the wave of migrants on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, an external European Union border.

Hungary-Bulgaria ties are characterised by “dynamic dialogue”, Szijjártó said, adding that cooperation both at the bilateral and European level was “broad”. Hungary and Bulgaria share standpoints on major issues such as the situation in the Western Balkans and the EU’s cohesion and farm policies, he said.

Noting that Hungary is a major business partner of Bulgaria’s and one the country’s largest investors,

Nikolova called for a further tightening of economic ties.

Answering a question, Szijjártó said Hungary wants to beef up the protection of its strategic facilities and is planning to buy an intermediate air-defence missile system. He added that “talks will soon enter the final phase” but said that it was necessary that parliament’s defence committee “make legal conditions and processes for the purchase simpler”. He also said it was “too early to talk about sums”.

Szijjártó also said that talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Budapest on Monday had not touched on either Hungarian or US domestic affairs and focused instead on bilateral cooperation as well as “international developments that could influence it”.

Border protection crucial for Europe’s security, says Hungarian interior minister

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Hungary’s position that border protection is crucial for Europe’s security is being endorsed in more and more countries, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said on Thursday after a meeting of European Union ministers of the interior and justice.

Illegal migration and protection of the Schengen borders are closely linked issues and “the idea is spreading within the EU that there is no point in talking about Schengen without protecting the external borders,” Pintér said.

The interior ministers at the Bucharest meeting agreed to raise the staff of EU border protection agency Frontex from the current 400 to 10,000 by the year 2027, he told Hungary‘s public media. In the first phase, a “robust” unit of 3,000 people will be on reserve in order to be able to assist member countries protect the external borders of the EU in case they need help, he added.

“This is an opportunity to protect Europe’s external borders and we support it (reinforcing Frontex),” Pintér said.

Frontex, however, “must not harm the sovereignty of member states and must not arbitrarily take over border protection services” from any country, he added.

Over 700 migrants detained at Hungarian-Serbian border in January, says Orbán’s advisor

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Border agencies detained more than 700 illegal migrants at the Hungarian-Serbian border in January, the prime minister’s chief domestic security advisor told public news channel M1 on Tuesday.

Most of them sought to enter Hungary by hiding in a vehicle, György Bakondi said.

Hungary has strengthened its double border fence with technical equipment, increased its police staff, reviewed the sources of support for NGOs helping migrants, and trained its authorities to handle an increased wave of migrants, he said.

“Tight border control is where the stability of Hungary’s domestic security starts,” he said.

There are more than 70,000 migrants en route through the Balkans to Europe, most of them from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Algeria, Bakondi said.

What is at stake at the EP elections is whether or not we can protect Europe from immigration

“The most important stake of the EP elections is whether or not we will be able to protect Europe from immigration and pro-immigration politicians”, Bakondi declared in a statement to reporters on Monday.

“Last year, Hungary made several efforts to guarantee security, and the implementation of measures aimed at security will continue this year”, Mr. Bakondi highlighted.

The Chief Security Advisor said the fact that there are no extremist public security events or no-go zones in Hungary, and that the maintenance o the domestic security situation can be guaranteed, was one of the greatest achievements of 2018.

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“One of the important issues relating to the migration situation if the protection of the external border, in support of which Hungary has been consequently speaking out at international forums since 2015, and the importance of which also began to be voiced by European Union bureaucracy and many politicians last year”, he explained.

“The Italian government measures have shown that mass illegal migration can also be stopped along maritime borders, meaning that stopping migration is simply a matter of political will”, he pointed out.

“The main directions of the Western Balkan migration route have changed from the earlier Macedonia–Serbia–Hungary route to the Macedonia–Serbia–Bosnia-Hercegovina–Croatia–Slovenia or Albania–Montenegro–Bosnia-Hercegovina–Croatia–Slovenia route”, he stated. “After setting out from Turkey, immigrants often aim for the Turkish-Greek land border instead of for the Greek islands”, he added.

“According to estimates for January 2018, there were 60 thousand illegal migrants on the Balkan route, and during the same period this year the number of registered immigrants is 70 thousand”, Mr. Bakondi said.

“With relation to the main direction, 62.5 thousand people arrived in Spain last year, an increase of 120 percent, 23 thousand arrived in Italy, which represents a decrease of 80 percent, and 32 thousand arrived in Greece”, he listed. Some five thousand people attempted to cross the border illegally into Hungary last year, of whom 4292 were apprehended in the immediate vicinity of the border, while the others were found in other parts of the country, he continued.

“The implementation of security measures will continue this year, including the modernisation of police equipment and infrastructure development projects the funding for which is being provided by a programme that has a budget of some 97 billion forints (EUR 300 million)”, he stressed.

“Last year, the number of stand-by police increased by three thousand, and the Office of Immigration and Asylum was reorganised”, the Chief Advisor reminded the press.

“Over the past three years, Hungary has spent one billion euros on border protection, of which 300 million euros were accepted by the European Commission, but the money is yet to be transferred”, he explained.

From amongst the measures introduced, Mr. Bakondi mentioned support for conflict zones, national legislation and stricter asylum regulations.

He objected to the fact that while 40 countries, including 9 EU member states, had not voted to adopt the UN Global Compact for Migration, the EU has recently made several attempts to incorporate it into the mandatory system of regulations.

In reply to a question, the Chief Security Advisor said: 815 people have been apprehended at the Hungarian border so far this year on suspicion of people smuggling. 47 people have submitted requests for asylum since 1 January.

“Activity is being seen along the migration route, and if Croatian police continue their efforts and Slovenian border protection is successful, then traffic could move towards other countries, for instance Romania”, he explained. The Hungarian Government is closely monitoring events and is taking the necessary action, he stated. “The Hungarian border is capable of withstanding a much higher level of migration pressure than currently”, Mr. Bakondi declared.

Photo: police.hu

Strong central Europe in Hungary, Slovenia’s interest, says state secretary

Hungary and Slovenia have a shared interest in a politically and economically strong central Europe within the European Union that is pro- rather than anti-EU, a government official said on Thursday.

A strong EU cannot exist without strong member states or regions capable of developing, Szabolcs Takács, state secretary for EU Affairs at the Prime Minister’s Office, told MTI after bilateral talks with Dobran Bozic, state secretary for foreign affairs and Igor Mally, state secretary at the prime minister’s office.

On the agenda of talks were the European parliamentary elections, European integration, the future of the EU, the European Union budget and illegal migration.

EU projects aimed at improving links between Europe’s northern and southern regions, including Hungarian-Slovenian infrastructure and energy links, were also discussed.

Takács said cross-border cooperation was a fundamental aspect of the EU.

“Cooperation between Hungary and Slovenia is excellent, not only as regards EU affairs, but also for Hungarians living here,” he told MTI by phone, noting the opening of a consulate-general in Lendava (Lendva) in 2016 and referring to a Hungarian government economic development scheme backed by the Slovenian government.

Countries that represent fundamental principles and values like national identity, strengthening EU security and competitiveness, the free movement of workers, and the EU without internal border controls can be successful, he said.

“Neither Slovenia nor Hungary accepts that some of our EU partners … want to maintain border controls within the Schengen area over the long term,” he said.

Takács urged the Romanian EU presidency to take the views of all member states into consideration.

Regarding migration, Hungary respects the positions of member states that want theirs to be a multicultural society. But they should also respect the decisions of Hungarian and Slovenian citizens, he said.

He noted that Slovenia will take up the EU presidency in 2021, and integration of the western Balkans will be a priority for the former Yugoslav state. Both countries, said Takács, were confident that the new European Commission would be enlargement-friendly. “Western Balkan countries must become EU members as soon as possible for the sake of our political, economic and security interests,” he said.

Concerning the EU budget, he said Hungary and Slovenia agreed that a reduction in the size of the next seven-year budget could not be justified by Brexit alone.

Goals, he added, must be set first and then the financial resources allocated to them. The European Commission’s current proposals penalise central European countries, he said.

Takács told his Slovenian partners that Hungary was against supporting illegal migrants from the common budget while the poorest regions received less money.

Hungarian government addresses debate on Article 7 procedure

Hungary fence

The European community has been moving in the wrong direction in recent years, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday, addressing a conference on the Article 7 procedure against Hungary.

Gergely Gulyás said that the European Commission no longer acted as a guardian of the treaties, but now played a political role.

Gulyas insisted that in recent years countries that neglected Schengen rules were considered “good” Europeans while others enforcing those regulations were “bad”. In terms of handling migration Hungary was the only country “with an exemplary approach”, as the first EU member to “do its duty and protect the external borders”, Gulyás said.

Concerning the European Parliament’s Sargentini report, Gulyás said that the author “has Soviet-type leanings”. He argued that

Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini “wants to influence the independent Hungarian judiciary” and insisted that her report was an “indictment”.

Máté Kocsis, head of the Fidesz parliamentary group, said that Sargentini herself had said at a press conference that she wanted to use the document to exert political pressure on Hungary. He criticised authors of the document for consulting civil groups in Hungary while failing to contact the Prime Minister’s Office for input.

Gergely Bárándy, a lawyer and former opposition Socialist Party lawmaker, said that although the report contained errors, its substantive claims were true. He mentioned, for example, that the rule of law excluded retroactive legislation, and insisted that “once a member state violates such principles the community must react”.

András Schiffer, a former co-leader of the opposition LMP party, said a system of checks and balances were no longer part of Hungary’s constitutional order. He added, however, that the Sargentini report contained “obvious errors or lies”.

Photo: kormany.hu