It is unacceptable for Hungary that the European Union would force it to open its gates to illegal migrants, initiate procedures and thereby allow them into the EU, said Bence Rétvári, Hungary’s parliamentary state secretary of the ministry of interior, while speaking on Sunday morning’s Kossuth Radio program.
Rétvári said that, according to an implementation plan adopted this summer, Hungary would have to process more than a quarter of all applications from irregular migrants. This is disproportionately high and would create migrant ghettos, which Hungary wants to avoid. He stressed the need to build up the capacity to process applications, to increase it fourfold by 2028, and to ensure access to applications thereafter.
“Since 2015, we have been pursuing the same policy: We comply with Hungarian and EU legislation, which makes it clear that the borders must be protected and that it is not possible to cross the border illegally without documents,” he said.
Rétvári pointed out that, in comparison, the €2 billion (800 billion forints) that it costs to protect the Hungarian border has not been covered by the EU budget, and according to the incredibly disproportionate and unjust penalty imposed by the European Court of Justice, Hungary would have to pay 78 billion forints and then another €1 million a day in fines.
He stressed that Hungary would not give in, and was seeking a solution to assert its claims with the help of experts in international law.
“The Hungarians, and the eastern countries of the EU in general, absolutely refuse to accept mass influxes of illegal migrants, and if Brussels really wants mass influxes of migrants, they can look into the possibility of migrants taking a flight somewhere near the Hungarian border and landing in Brussels,” he said.
Rétvári recalled that the essence of the Schengen rules was to make Europe internally permeable, but this achievement has been “severely cracked” as a result of migration, with internal border controls being introduced in many places because the EU does not protect external borders. In the case of the attack in England involving the murder of young children, it was clear that not only the migrants who come here, but also their children, are not integrated in Europe; they commit the same crimes, so there is no integration in Europe based on cultural identity, he pointed out.
