National immigration authority chief Zsuzsanna Végh said Hungary, in line with European norms, has the capacity to receive 1,500 migrants a day. Yet there are 3,500-4,000 new arrivals each day awaiting shelter.

Some are now sleeping in tents, she added. Végh said that her authority was committed to meeting all obligations arising from the Dublin Regulation.

But further capacity is needed before Hungary could receive illegal migrants returning to Hungary from western Europe, she said, noting that the number of those migrants was on the increase due to target countries stepping up controls and sending more and more people back to Hungary.

Hungary will continue to receive refugees who are persecuted or from a country seriously embroiled in war, since doing so will save their lives, a lawmaker of ruling Fidesz said.

But people whose main motivations are economic cannot be regarded as asylum-seekers, Szilárd Németh told public television.

What currently has been witnessed is mass migration, as several million people head for Europe, he told news channel M1, adding that this problem can only be resolved by stopping these people outside the European Union’s borders.

This requires strengthening the EU’s borders while eliminating the causes for migration, he said. Hungary cannot handle the situation alone, and so it has decided to construct a fence on its southern border with Serbia as well as temporarily suspending asylum rules on taking back refugees who first enter Hungary, Németh said.

Other EU member states have either been considering similar measures or have implemented these already, he said, noting border closures by countries neighbouring Italy. “Hungary is full; it has exhausted its capacities,” he said.

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