On Wednesday, the Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orbán jointly criticized the European Union, which, according to them, does not sufficiently protect its borders from illegal migration. Together, the two prime ministers visited a fence on the Hungarian-Serbian border near the Röszke crossing, which Hungary had built in 2015 at the height of the migration crisis.
“The European Union lacks the will to protect borders,” Orbán said, adding that Brussels did not provide funding to protect the Schengen area.
He also criticized the European Union for the delays in the accession of Serbia and other states to the European bloc, saying that EU protection should not fall on Hungary, but on the southern border of Europe. Babiš would then welcome the defense of the European area at sea.
Both prime ministers agreed that illegal immigration into Europe should be prevented.
“The Czech Republic will not accept migrants but will help them in their countries,” Babiš said.
According to Babiš, currently, it is, for example, important to negotiate with the radical Taliban movement, which took control over Afghanistan in August, and to find a solution to the situation in Syria and Libya.
Hungary built the border fence six years ago in response to the explosive migration crisis that erupted at the time, when hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East, mainly from Syria and Iraq, but also from other Asian countries, came to the European Union through Hungarian territory. At that time, Budapest built a barrier along the entire 175-kilometer-long border with Serbia and raised a fence along 200 kilometers, which amounted to half of the border with Croatia.
As part of the two-day visit to Hungary, during which the Czech prime minister will also take part in the demographic summit on Thursday, Babiš brought two heated tents and ten army tents as gifts, which are to be used by patrols guarding the border. At the border fence, he also promised that at the beginning of next week, he would talk with Czech ministers about sending soldiers or police officers who would help their Hungarian colleagues with security.
Title image: Prime Minister Andrej Babiš at the Hungarian border with Viktor Orbán (Andrej Babiš/ Facebook)
