The government is ready to take further steps if needed, he told the daily Magyar Hírlap.

Kovács insisted that western European countries now contained parallel societies due to decades of immigration, “which has hardly been a success story”.

“Most of the economic migrants” who settled in western Europe “did so illegally”, he added.

“Europe is now forced to face the harsh reality of hundreds of thousands of migrants trying to breach the EU’s external borders from the direction of Turkey and the Mediterranean,” he added, accusing the bloc of showing “helplessness and indecisiveness”.

Hungary’s recommendations for solutions to the problem have fallen on deaf ears, he said. Brussels is still focused on finding a pan-European solution and wants to take over control of migration and asylum policy, Kovács said.

“Obviously, this won’t work.” “Hungary and the Visegrad Group have set a good example when it comes to effective national solutions.”

Kovács insisted that NGOs were “gradually taking over” the management of migration, which he added was “a threat in itself”.

Kovács criticised Europe’s handling of the migration crisis, saying that the bloc had only carried out “bogus measures” relating to border protection and the construction of transit zones.

“Frontex, for instance, added 1,500 border guards while Greece alone has just asked for 10,000,” he said.

“What’s worse is that they haven’t even understood that help should be taken to the points where the problems arise instead of importing trouble to Europe.”

Kovács said Europe should work on helping to stabilise Syria, Libya and other crisis zones.

MTI Photo