With the fence on its southern border, Hungary is defending the external borders of the Schengen Area as well as its own, Bence Retvari said. Hungarian policemen and border hunters have foiled 1 million illegal entry attempts since 2015, he added.

Nevertheless, the Court of Justice of the European Union "has imposed a gigantic, disproportionate, unfair fine on Hungary, trying to force it to allow masses of migrants into the country and to abandon it migration policy," he said.

Free One-Way Ticket to Brussels from Hungary for Migrants?

“We can say that Brussels is working to force us to allow migrants into the country,” Gulyás told a press briefing. Hungary has also been fined for operating transit zones at the border, even as the new migration pact “has partially taken over those good Hungarian practices”, he said.

The protection of the Schengen Area’s external borders “is important for the whole of Europe, and not just protecting Hungary from migration.”

At the same time, Hungary is being denied access to EU funding earmarked for border protection, he said.

Gulyás said the interior and justice ministers were looking into “offering all migrants at the Hungarian border to transport them to Brussels, voluntarily and for free, adhering to European procedures”, should the EU continue to try to strong-arm Hungary into adopting regulations that would make it impossible to keep migrants away from the country.

 “Hungary does not wish to pay daily fines” but will make it possible for those willing to get a one-way ticket to Brussels where “they can negotiate with the European Commission on the services they are to receive”.

Rétvári: Govt Plans Legal Steps Against Brussels' Migrant Measures

Hungary is weighing the conditions for a legal solution countering the European Commission’s recent implementing decision on capacity for asylum procedures under the new migration pact, Bence Rétvári, a state secretary at the Interior Ministry, said on public radio.

Under the EC’s implementing decision, Hungary would be responsible for processing the applications of over one-fourth of the illegal migrants entering the area of the European Union, Rétvári told Kossuth Radio. That number is “disproportionately large” and paves the way for “migrant ghettos”, he added.

Brussels is requiring Hungary to expand its capacity for processing applications and expects the country to quadruple it by 2028, he said. He added that the government was sticking to the position it had held since 2015: illegal migrants must not be allowed to cross the EU frontier, in compliance with Hungarian and EU rules.

He noted that Hungary’s spending on border protection had come to 2 billion euros.

He said a 78 billion forint (EUR 200m) fine and a daily 1 million euro penalty Hungary had to pay under a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU was “political pressure” to get Hungary to let in migrants.

Along with Hungary, EU member states in the region are, in general, opposed to allowing in masses of illegal migrants, he said. If Brussels really wants masses of migrants, Hungary is weighing the possibility of sending those who cross the Hungarian border directly to Brussels, he added.

He pointed to the negative economic impact of border checks within the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone established because the EU’s frontiers couldn’t be protected.

He said the recent murder of children in the UK’s Southport showed that even the children of migrants to the EU weren’t integrating.

He added that the EU could only implement one in ten returns of illegal migrants, and there was no guarantee those who were returned wouldn’t attempt to come back.

Kovács: Brussels Should Also Welcome Migrants

If Brussels forces Hungary to let migrants in, then it must also welcome them, Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international relations and communications, said on the X platform.

For almost a decade, Hungary has protected the EU’s external border, spending more than 2 billion euros of its own money to meet its Schengen obligations, the state secretary said, citing a letter by Tamás Iván Kovács, Hungary’s ambassador to Belgium, to the Socialist mayor of Brussels, Phillippe Close.

“[I]t is Hungary, not Brussels, that has suffered from a lack of solidarity,” Kovács said, adding that all it got in return for rigorously protecting the EU border was a fine of 200 million euros.

“Hungary will not compromise its national security or bear this burden alone, especially when Brussels seems to desire migrants only as long as they remain in other EU member states,” he said, adding that the call for solidarity was not just rhetorical, but “a demand for fair treatment and genuine support from the EU”.

In his letter to Close, Hungary’s ambassador asked the mayor for his solidarity and support in ensuring that the EU did not penalise countries that comply with the Schengen Agreement and protect their external borders.

*********************************

You're very welcome to comment, discuss and enjoy more stories via our Facebook page: 
Facebook.com/XpatLoopNews + via XpatLoop’s groups: Budapest Expats / Expats Hungary

You can subscribe to our newsletter here: XpatLoop.com/Newsletters

Do you want your business to reach tens of thousands of potential high-value expat customers? Then just contact us here!