Date To Be Set For Budapest Conference On Migration
- 22 Jul 2015 9:00 AM
Only the date needs to be finalised for a high-level European Union conference to be held on migration in Budapest this autumn, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said. EU ministers have agreed in Brussels that the member states would receive on a voluntary basis 54,760 refugees and asylum-seekers from conflict zones as well as from Italy and Greece, the two EU member states in which most migrants arrive.
Pintér confirmed that Hungary would not take in any migrants from either category since the council accepted that the country is exposed to a huge and growing migratory pressure which is unparalleled along the EU’s external borders.
The minister said that more than 88,000 people had crossed Hungary’s borders illegally this year.
“More asylum requests have been submitted in Hungary than in Italy and Greece taken together,” Pintér said.
Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó proposed in Luxembourg on June 22 that a summit on migration from the Western Balkans should be held in Budapest.
According to his proposal, leaders of the EU, Western Balkans, Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean should meet early in the autumn and discuss ways to ease the pressure of migration.
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MTI photo: Kelemen Zoltán Gergely
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