Schengen

Oath-taking ceremony of border police officers held in Budapest – PHOTOS

border police Hungary

Hungary has been the first country to prove that “migration, so far believed to be uncontrollable, can be controlled, stopped, and reversed”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said today.

Orbán addressed the oath-taking ceremony of 1,206 border police officers in Budapest’s Heroes Square, and said that “we have also been the first to demonstrate that we will not be forced to accommodate people whose identities or intentions we do not know”. “We believe that the future of Europe is not planned in the centre of an empire but in the capitals of European nation states; in Warsaw, Paris, Berlin, and in Budapest, too,” Orbán insisted. Should it happen otherwise, he suggested, “impoverishment and subordination” would follow.

Making decisions concerning the future of Hungary must be up to Hungarians, Orbán said, and argued that if his government “had allowed to happen otherwise”, hundreds of thousands of migrants “would still be pouring through Hungary” and “anyone who declares themselves a refugee would still enter uncontrolled”.

Hungary, however, did what “commonsense and history dictated: it blocked the influx”; Hungary “did not wait for others or sought excuses, it did not shrink from criticism… but organised defence”, the prime minister said.

Addressing the new officers, Orbán said that it was not enough to organise border protection; it needed to be reinforced time after time and it had to be maintained day by day. Unless a country has border control and “brave border police” there will be “no welfare, security, order or development just uncertainty, fear, chaos, anger and trucks driving into the people,” Orbán said.

The ceremony was also attended by Interior Minister Sándor Pintér and Defence Minister István Simicskó.

Photo: MTI

Government: The European Commission attempting to pressurise Hungary

The European Commission is using the infringement procedure it launched against Hungary earlier this week over the issue of migrant distribution quotas to pressurise the Hungarian government and parliament to change their position on migrant quotas, the government office chief said on Thursday.

“This is not an option,” János Lázár told a weekly press briefing.

Hungary has not taken in any migrants and it does not intend to in the future either, Lázár said.

He said Hungary had already “done its part” in showing solidarity over the migrant crisis, arguing that Hungary’s border protection measures had stopped the flow of migrants towards Austria and Germany via the Balkans route.

Hungary’s stance is to “stop migration rather than organise it”, Lázár said.

He said that Brussels had applied double standards against Hungary by constantly punishing the country instead of recognising its efforts.

“They want to redistribute 98,255 migrants among European countries on a mandatory basis. This fits the plans [US financier] George Soros has dictated to EU leaders,” Lázár said. So far 20,000 people have been transferred from one country to another, which means that “the programme has not been implemented”, he said, suggesting that the majority of EU members were boycotting the decision.

Asked about recent reports that the human smugglers responsible for the death of 71 migrants had been wiretapped by Hungarian police, Lázár dismissed the possibility that the victims could have been saved from suffocation in the truck during its journey through Hungary into Austria had the recording been translated earlier. Conversations tapped by the police “are not evaluated immediately”, he said, adding that “translating the language used by the perpetrators was a problem” partly because the police’s resources had been directed elsewhere at the time. “Had it not been for the Hungarian police the perpetrators would had never been identified”.

“No professional mistake was made,” he said.

In addition, he insisted that the German public media was “waging a smear campaign” against Hungary “because it refuses to accommodate illegal migrants from Germany”.

In a statement on Thursday, the ministry of interior said the Hungarian authorities had no access of information at the end of August 2015 that could have prevented the deaths of the 71 migrants.

The German public media reporters in question drew unfounded conclusions by insisting that the tragedy could have been avoided had the Hungarian authorities translated and assessed the recordings of the phone conversations sooner.

The authorities had recorded members of the criminal gang speaking in Bulgarian, Serbian and Pashtu, but in accordance with technical and professional rules, their conversations were not listened to, translated or evaluated simultaneously. The investigative authority received the recorded material on September 4, 2015, the statement said, adding that the German reporters were well aware of this fact.

Further, it was not in Hungary that the victims had agreed with the smugglers on the conditions or mode of their transport and no Hungarian citizens had been involved in committing the crime, the ministry said. After the tragedy had become known the Hungarian authorities, based on information received by their Austrian counterparts, acted within 12 hours to identify the suspects and their suspected places of residence, before capturing them.

Photo: MTI

Szeged appeals court dismisses first-instance ruling for Syrian involved in border crossing riot

An appeals court in Szeged dismissed on Thursday the first-instance ruling concerning a Syrian man convicted under terrorism charges for his role in a riot by migrants at Hungary’s Röszke border crossing with Serbia in the autumn of 2015. The appellate court has ordered a new trial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y2Ci4bajD0

In the primary ruling passed by a Szeged court in November 2016, Ahmed H was sentenced to serve ten years in prison for terrorist activities involving illegal border crossing as well as incitement to violence in the context of a riot.

he court in southern Hungary also ruled that at least two thirds of his term must be served before permanent expulsion from the country.

As part of his conviction, Ahmed H was sentenced for using a megaphone to direct migrants who were hurling rocks at police on the Hungarian border.

The prosecution appealed for a longer prison term while the defence appealed for a dismissal of the terrorism charge and a reduced sentence in respect of the other charges.

Judge Erik Mezőlaki said in his reasoning that the first-instance court was supposed to review and weigh the pieces of evidence presented to it both separately and as a whole. Instead the court handed down its verdict without clarifying the basis for considering or dismissing the individual pieces of evidence, Mezőlaki said. The evidence and arguments on which it based its verdict were also not made clear, he added. The judge said this error on the part of the first-instance court had had a fundamental effect on the legal qualification of the defendant’s actions.

Following the ruling, the government office chief said outside interference around the case was an indication of European “pressure” on Hungary. Referring to Ahmed H as “an alleged political refugee holding seven passports and owning a villa in Cyprus”, János Lázár insisted that the Left in the European Parliament had “sided” with the defendant, “putting him on a pedestal and presenting him as the ideal refugee”. He also noted that the first-instance ruling was cited in a recent resolution of the EP as a point of criticism of the Hungarian government.

Péter Szijjártó, the Hungarian foreign minister, said at the end of May this year that the Hungarian government would appeal to international organisations against a recent resolution by the European Parliament putting the man under its protection. The EP, he said, “took sides with a terrorist rather than with Hungary and its police who had been under attack”, adding that the government would send its appeal to the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the OSCE and NATO.

In December last year the US State Department issued a statement expressing concern over the “prosecution and sentencing in Hungary of Ahmed Hamed based on a broad interpretation of what constitutes ‘terrorism’.” It urged the Hungarian government “to conduct a transparent investigation, with input from independent civil society groups.”

Amnesty International welcomed the appeal court’s ruling in a statement, referring to it as “an important step towards justice” for Ahmed H.

Hungary appeals Strasbourg court’s ruling on Bangladeshi asylum seekers

Hungary has appealed a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordering the state to compensate two Bangladeshi asylum seekers for wrongly detaining and deporting them in 2015, a justice ministry official said on Wednesday.

In a ruling issued in March, the ECtHR said that Hungary had violated the European Convention on Human Rights by detaining the two asylum seekers in the Röszke transit zone near Hungary’s southern border. The court also said that authorities later sent them back to Serbia, which the ECtHR said had put them under the risk of facing inhumane treatment in the Greek refugee reception centres.

The Hungarian government is of the view that this interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights could trigger a form of “business migration” to Europe, justice ministry state secretary Pál Völner told a press conference. He said rulings like the one in question could also “tear down the Schengen system” and generate “business human rights protection”.

Völner noted that the court had ordered Hungary to pay the asylum seekers 10,000 euros each in compensation. In addition, the state was ordered to pay 3 million forints (EUR 9,800) in legal fees to the Helsinki Committee, which had taken on their legal representation, he said.

Völner said that the fact that one of the judges on the ECtHR is among the founders of Budapest’s Central European University and “has close ties to” the Hungarian Helsinki Committee raised the possibility of a conflict of interest in the case.

He said the court’s ruling could bring about a “migration vacuum” in Europe which would lead to “economic migrants from all over the world” making their way to the continent.

The Hungarian government has therefore asked the ECtHR to weigh the global impact of the case, as its ruling could result in tens of millions of migrants setting off for Europe, Völner said.

 By Zairon – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Orbán’s cabinet: EU visa waiver for Ukraine breakthrough for ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia

The European Union’s visa waiver scheme for Ukraine is a major breakthrough for ethnic Hungarians in Transcarpathia as it will greatly help them strengthen their links with Hungary, the state secretary for Hungarian communities abroad said on Sunday.

Árpád János Potápi told MTI that the visa waiver represents a milestone in Ukraine’s EU integration, of which Hungary has been a dedicated supporter right from the start.

Hungary was among the first countries to ratify Ukraine’s EU association agreement and in recent years, it made a series of efforts to prevent delays in the introduction of the visa waiver scheme. For this reason, the fact that the scheme entered into force last night is also a success of the Hungarian government, he said.

Hungary has a vested interest in a democratic, politically and economically strong Ukraine, which respects national minority rights. The visa waiver is crucial from this aspect, he said.

Photo: MTI/EPA/Pavlo Palamarcsuk

Bavarian, Hungarian interior ministers discuss security cooperation

The interior ministers of Bavaria and Hungary met in Budapest on Thursday to discuss security policy cooperation; both ministers stressed the need to take action against illegal immigration.

At a press conference following the meeting, Bavarian Minister of Interior Joachim Herrmann spoke about the fact that it is also in Hungary’s interests to keep the threat of terrorism at the lowest possible level in view of recent events in Western Europe.

Mr. Herrmann told reporters that similarly to Mr. Pintér he has also been in office since 2010 and has developed a good and trustful relationship with his Hungarian counterpart, adding that direct contacts between the Bavarian and Hungarian police are extremely important in view of the fact that they are cooperating with regard to many security policy issues. The Minister said it was important to prevent the illegal crossing of borders and for people who enter the Schengen Area to be clearly identified.

Mr. Pintér stressed that the fact that people in Hungary and Bavaria can live in safety is partly thanks to the cooperation between Hungarian and Bavarian police.

According to the Hungarian Interior Minister, both countries are facing similar problems, including illegal migration and the possibility of acts of terrorism that threaten the country’s security. Mr. Pintér told the press that action to facilitate tourism and economic cooperation were also a subject of discussion at the meeting.

“Although Bavaria is within the Schengen Area, it is nevertheless under significant pressure from illegal immigration, because of which it has temporarily reinstated border controls”, the Minister pointed out.

“Thanks to a major border security development project, we have successfully ensured that illegal immigrants cannot arrive in Bavaria or anywhere else via Hungary”, he added.

The two interior ministers said that an important element of their cooperation was the goal of ensuring that Hungary is not the target or source of any act of terrorism.

As part of their preventive action, the parties agreed to quickly and efficiently share all necessary information.

Photo: Károly Árvai / kormany.hu

Germany ‘grateful’ for Hungary’s border protection efforts, says Hungarian minister Balog

germany hungary flag

German officials are “grateful” for Hungary’s efforts to protect the European Union’s external border, because these efforts also help protect Germany’s borders, Hungary’s minister of human resources said after talks with leading German officials in Berlin on Friday.

“In half-private, friendly conversations, everyone is grateful” to Hungary for the measures it has taken to manage the migration crisis, Zoltán Balog told Hungarian public media. He said German officials were starting to see that “[Prime Minister] Viktor Orbán was right”.

“We aren’t the ones who have changed, but rather it is the European position that has caught up with us,” he said.

Balog said this was demonstrated by the fact that European countries were now making sure to devote close attention to the protection of the bloc’s external borders, the enforcement of migration regulations and protective measures against terrorism.

The minister was in Berlin to attend an international prayer breakfast where he held talks with Bundestag president Norbert Lammert and German Health Minister Hermann Groehe, among other officials.

Orbán’s cabinet: Hungary opposes relaxing legal framework for illegal migration

Hungary is staunchly against any attempt to relax the existing legal framework, especially when it comes to the issue of illegal migration, the government spokesman said after a background briefing in Hungary’s Vienna embassy on Monday.

Speaking to MTI, Zoltán Kovács said Hungary also stood opposed to attempts to reinterpret the regulations in place.

By sticking to the rules, it would have been possible to prevent all sorts of problems that several countries such as Austria face today, he said, adding it was not only compliance with existing regulations that was required but also the adoption of observable and enforceable rules.

“If we do not follow the existing rules, however much we try to protect the internal borders, the Schengen system may crumble nevertheless,” he said.

Kovacs said sovereignty in such areas as border control should never be given up and should remain a national competence. At same time, in areas in which cooperation works well, an efficient system can be set up with the European Union, he added.

Addressing journalists questions, the government spokesman also commented on the Central European University. “Making amendments to the higher education law or making the operation of a funded organisation more transparent is the competence of a member state,” he said. “And still they are making symbolic cases out of all of this with which to attack Hungarian policies in general,” he added.

Fidesz: Dismantling fence ‘extremely dangerous idea’

(MTI) – The idea of dismantling the fence along Hungary’s border with Serbia is “extremely dangerous” as it would compromise the security of not only Hungary but Europe as a whole, cabinet office chief Antal Rogán told a public forum on Friday evening.

Rogan responded to remarks by László Botka, the opposition Socialist Party’s prime ministerial candidate, telling a Reuters conference on Wednesday that, if elected to power, he would “dismantle the fence as soon as European Union border protection controls are in place and the situation in the Middle East calms down”.

Rogán said Botka’s remarks demonstrated that Hungary’s political left has clearly assigned themselves to serving Brussels’ policy of promoting migration in line with US financier George Soros’ concept.

The Hungarian government will not yield to any pressure to change its migration policy, it will maintain the fence along its southern border and keep the transit zones closed, Rogán asserted.

Europe must be defended at the Hungarian border, he said, insisting that without a fence in place, migrants would flow unimpeded into Hungary to make their way further to the west. He criticised the EU’s pro-migration policy pointing out the possibility of terrorist acts.

Photo: MTI

Foreign minister: Hungarian border protection represents the only solution

“Only extremely strict Hungarian border protection and the fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border have provided a solution to illegal immigration recently”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest on Monday.

“Migration pressure is far from over, as proven by the fact that over 50 thousand illegal immigrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, 47 percent more than during the same period last year, and 1054 migrants have entered Romania, which represents an increase od 70 percent”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

The Minister also spoke about the fact that we must also calculate with several worrisome factors with regard to the future, including the onset of good weather, during which migration pressure always increases. “Another problem is the fragile nature of the migration agreement between the EU and Turkey, because European leaders are continuously criticising Turkey, despite the fact that they have placed the continent’s security in the hands of the Turkish President. In addition, the unstable political situation in Macedonia is also cause for concern in view of the fact that we cannot know whether the new political leadership will be capable of continuing or intends to continue the country’s previous border protection activities”, Mr. Szijjártó continued.

“And instead of searching for a solution to the problem, the European Union is placing pressure on countries who have solved the problem, or who have ideas concerning a possible solution”, the Minister said.

A few weeks ago George Soros was received in Brussels with the respect usually only reserved for heads of state and government, after which the European Parliament issued its decision on the “Soros Report”, Mr. Szijjártó continued.

“It is outrageous that in a period in which we are facing such challenges, in which we should be dealing with the issue of energy security, with Brexit, or with the situation in Ukraine, the European Parliament is capable of adopting a resolution in which it rushes to the aid of a Syrian migrant called Ahmed H., who has been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for terrorism”, Mr. Szijjártó said, refereeing to the fact that last week the EP voted to trigger Article 7 infringement proceedings against Hungary. This is “the latest example of Europe ruining of its own future”, he added.

Mr. Szijjártó also told reporters that if the Government observed that the Western Balkan migration route was shifting towards Romania, then border protection would be expanded and construction would begin on a new border security fence along the Hungarian-Romanian border, following regular discussions with the Romanian administration.

Asked about press reports regarding a migrant “attack” on a vehicle carrying Hungarian students at Calais in France, the foreign minister called such incidents unacceptable, adding that all this demonstrated the deterioration of Europe’s security situation. He said Hungary’s diplomatic mission had been asked to take steps to help the group if need be.

Photo: Zsolt Szigetváry/MTI

Translator in migrant trials charged with perjury

Daily News Hungary

Kecskemét, May 22 (MTI) – The Kecskemét Prosecutor’s Office brought perjury charges against a translator involved in the trials on the 2015 Röszke disturbances involving migrants, the prosecutor’s office said on Monday.

On September 16, 2015, Hungarian police stopped illegal migrants trying to break through the gate at a crossing point of the Röszke-Horgos station on the border between Hungary and Serbia. Earlier, the police used tear gas and water-cannons against the crowd, numbering several hundred people and throwing stones, bottles and burning torches at the officers.

During the hearings of those charged with the attempted border offence, one of the accused submitted to the court a two-page document, handwritten in Arabic and professing his innocence, the prosecutor’s office said.

The 63-year-old translator charged today was at the time working for the translation agency assigned to the trial. According to the charges, she changed more than half of the original text so that it meant the opposite of the original, in full knowledge of the fact that the document was used as evidence in a court hearing, the prosecutor’s office said.

The judge hearing the case ordered the proofreading of the translation and subsequently filed a complaint against the translator.

The accused, who is an Arabic-Hungarian translator and interpreter based in Budapest, declined to give an explanation for her actions. Prosecution requested a suspended prison sentence.

Hungary rejects EP Socialists and Democrats statement on transit zones

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary’s interior ministry on Thursday rejected a statement by the group of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament and denied that conditions for asylum seekers in transit zones were appalling.

The S and D group has called on the European Commission to take swift action to investigate conditions in the transit zones following a visit by three members of the group to the Hungarian-Serbian border.

The ministry said in a statement that the S and D delegation had visited the transit zone at Röszke last Friday but had not expressed any objections to placement conditions during their visit.

It added that several international delegations, among them a European Commission one, had visited the transit zones and “not a single critical comment had been made about the placement circumstances”.

Special efforts are made by the authorities to ensure that families are placed together, the statement said.

Photo: MTi

Hungary suspends “systematic border control”

Budapest (MTI) – Hungary’s government is temporarily suspending implementation of the EU decree on “systematic border control”, an interior ministry state secretary told MTI on Tuesday.

The government decision was published in the official gazette Magyar Közlöny on Tuesday evening and it has entered into force.

Sections of the Hungarian border have become extremely congested due to stricter control, Károly Kontrát said, and waiting times are expected to multiply during the summer season. The government has therefore issued a decision to temporarily suspend systematic control. Border control will become more targeted, he said.

From the very start, the government had doubts as to the practicality of a systematic control of every EU or third country citizen crossing the borders of the Schengen area in either direction. For this reason, Hungary considered the past weeks as a “test ride”, Kontrat said, adding that the EU should stop “pestering” EU citizens and concentrate on stopping and controlling illegal migrants and investigating terrorists.

Passed in early April, the regulation allows member states to suspend systematic control if risk analysis proves the suspension will pose no security risk.

Photo: MTI

Hungarian foreign minister discusses bilateral trade ties with Austrian finance minister

Austrian flag

Budapest, May 8 (MTI) – Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, on Monday held talks with Austrian Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling in Budapest, discussing, among others, bilateral trade ties, the foreign ministry said.

In their talks, the two ministers were in agreement that the undisturbed functioning of the passport-free Schengen zone was crucial for improving the European Union’s competitiveness. This, however, is dependent on the protection of the EU’s external borders, they said.

Szijjártó assured Schelling that Hungary would continue to fulfil its Schengen obligations.

The ministry stressed the importance of the continuous development of Hungary’s economic and trade ties with Austria, noting that the country was Hungary’s second largest trading partner last year. Bilateral trade turnover between the two countries could reach 10 billion euros by the end of 2017, the ministry said. Some 3,000 Austrian companies are present in Hungary employing 70,000 people, they added.

Fence at Hungary-Serbia border completed with secondary line of defence

Röszke, April 28 (MTI) – The second line to Hungary’s southern border fence has been completed along the entire 155 kilometres of the Hungary-Serbia border, Károly Kontrát, state secretary at the interior ministry told a press conference on Friday.

Speaking at Röszke border station, Kontrát said that “Hungary’s border protection is stronger than ever, further increasing security”.

The second line was necessary in preparation for a possible increase in migration pressure from the south, Kontrát said. He cited Italy as an example, where the number of new arrivals increased by 33 percent compared to Jan-April 2016.

Migration has been keeping Hungary’s southern borders under constant pressure since 2015 and the number of arrivals is expected to grow during the summer, Kontrát said.

Speaking about attempts to handle the flow of migrants effectively, Kontrát said that attempts to stop international traffickers of migrants and refugees have failed so far. At the Malta EU summit in February 2017, the member states entered an agreement to create “hotspots”, key arrival centres where more rigorous identification and fingerprinting systems will be implemented, in Libya. The aim was to stem the flow of migration from this country to Italy. The plan, however, has not made much headway since, Kontrát said.

The ships carrying migrants are not turned back to Africa when apprehended on open waters, he said. Meanwhile, political developments in Turkey jeopardise the EU agreement on migration with that country, Kontrát added.

The Hungarian legal border seal, which was strengthened a month ago, together with the newly finished second line of fence, greatly relieve the pressure on overworked police and military units serving there, he said.

The second fence cost 4.8 billion forints (EUR 15.3m), and was constructed within 60 days by 150 staff from Hungarian correction facilities and 700 inmates, Kontrat said.

Speaking on public radio on Friday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that the defence system on the southern border guarantees Hungarian people’s security for a long time. Although the pressure of migration from the Balkans will remain, the fences are “impenetrable” and able to stop “basically any number of people”, he said. The European Commission, George Soros and NGOs are working to force Hungary to dismantle the fence, change its legislation and let illegal migrants in, Orbán added.

Commission on legal border barrier begins work in Hungary

“The commission investigating all aspects of the legal border barrier has begun work, as agreed upon by the European Commission and Hungary’s Minister of Interior and Minister of Justice”, Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister György Bakondi said on M1 Hungarian television on Tuesday.

Mr. Bakondi stressed: refugees are not being detained in any way in transit zones, which can only be entered by people who would like to legally request asylum in Hungary. Asylum requests are assessed on site, during which time applicants may remain in the transit zone. If they change their mind, however, they are free to leave the transit zone at any time and return to the country they arrived from (Serbia), meaning the system can in no way be regarded as detention.

The right to request asylum had been regularly abused in recent years and asylum seekers have often left open camps, and this was the “loophole” that Hungarian legislators aimed to close with the new regulations, he said, adding that the new legislation does impose a restriction in the sense that people no longer have the opportunity to enter Hungary illegally.

The Chief Security Advisor also spoke about illegal immigration on Kossuth Radio’s “180 Minutes” program, explaining that there is no significant increase in the number of illegal immigrants, but Hungary is continuing to take all the required security measures in this “relatively quiet” period.

Photo: MTI

Government decries NY Times article on Hungary transit zones

Budapest, April 21 (MTI) – Government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has slammed a recent article in The New York Times as “outrageous” for comparing the migrants living in the Hungarian transit zones to the victims of the Holocaust.

The article published on Tuesday by the influential US daily said that several hundreds of asylum seekers are expected to be transferred to the transit zones by May, which invoke images of the Jews, Roma and others detained in concentration camps during the second world war.

In a blog post on Friday, Kovács called the comparison “wrong” and “outright offensive”, adding that it “probably ranks among the most outrageous statements about Hungary that we’ve seen in the media in years”. The transit zones are not “prison camps”, he said, arguing that migrants are “free to leave, returning the way they came”, but are not allowed to move freely within the European Union.

The reasons for the strict measures were the recent terrorist attacks in Europe, Kovács said, where he said terrorists used “Europe’s porous borders and lax asylum procedures” to commit their crimes.

The Hungarian government will not apologise for making the safety of Hungarians and other Europeans a priority, Kovács said.

Read the original NY Times article HERE: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/europe/hungary-orban-populism-migrants-border-european-union.html?_r=0

Getting from Hungary to Croatia got easier, but still slow

The traffic is still heavy at the Croatian checkpoints, but the waiting time has decreased after the Croatian authorities temporarily ceased the restricted checking on the Croatia-Slovenia and Croatia-Hungary border, the Croatian Car Club (HAK) stated.

The Croatian border guards are doing random, direct checks right now.

According to the forecast of HAK on Sunday, cars wait 30 minutes and buses wait 40 minutes at the checkpoints, on average.

From Friday on, the citizens with the right of free movement must be checked in the European Union both at the entrance and the exit, and the shown documents are searched for in the Schengen Information System (SIS) and Interpol’s database about lost and stolen documents (SLTD) in order to convince the authorities that the given person does not mean any security, public order or public health risk in the EU.

Letenye, Hungary, photo: MTI

The restriction is due not only to the outer borders but to each inner border in the Union where the member states have not agreed upon the abolishment of border checking, and is valid for railway, air and sea borders as well.

The Croatian Ministry of Internal Affairs stated on Saturday that the Croatian authorities have applied all the technological resources and manpower, and that they cooperate with their Slovenian and Hungarian colleagues, but they did not manage to decrease the waiting time and traffic bottlenecks at the checkpoints.

Croatia warned Union Minister of Migration Dimitris Avramopulos about the huge traffic jams, with whom they agreed about the temporary cease of restricted checking on the Croatian side.

translated by Gergely Lajtai Szabó

Photo: MTI

Ce: bm