Orbán cabinet demands EU money for border protection against illegal migrants
The European Union should deploy member states’ resources to protect the bloc’s external borders, but it is failing in doing so and has even imposed a daily fine on Hungary “for protecting its external borders”, Bence Rétvári, a state secretary at the interior ministry, said in Brussels on Wednesday.
Border protection is essential
Rétvári told a press conference after a meeting of EU interior ministers that the EU received 981,000 asylum requests in 2024, second highest after 2016, when some 1 million were registered. This year, the number of requests may reach 1.1 million, he insisted. “Pro-migration forces plan to have one million migrant arrive in Europe every year, while the negative effects of illegal migration are obvious,” Rétvári said.
Schengen Area falters
“Besides constant terror threat and increasingly frequent attacks, the Schengen Area is also faltering,” Rétvári said. While it is “in theory” based on the principle of free movement, an increasing number of countries including Italy, Germany, Sweden and France have so far introduced border checks, he said. That harms one of the EU’s fundamental goals, open borders, he said. “The situation is worse now than it was 5 years ago as internal borders are less and less open.”
Due to the EU’s inactivity, member states are increasingly taking the protection of external borders into their own hands, he said. Austrian, Czech and Slovak border guards have helped out on Hungary’s southern border in the past years, the state secretary added. Joint action was launched on the Turkish-Bulgarian border in 2024 with the participation of Bulgarian, Romanian, Austrian and Hungarian forces, and Croatian, Slovene and Italian authorities are cooperating to stop illegal migration on the Bosnian border, he said.
Four-nation cooperation in protecting Europe’s external border ‘exemplary’
The prime minister’s chief security advisor called the cooperation of Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Romania aimed at protecting Europe’s external borders “exemplary” on Wednesday.
Speaking to public news channel M1, György Bakondi commented on the deployment of an international unit to the Bulgarian-Turkish border. He said the cooperation “sets an example to Europe”, as Hungarian, Austrian, Romanian and Bulgarian police officers and border guards are jointly protecting Europe’s external borders.
Bakondi noted a surge in the number of migrants at the Hungarian-Serbian border with a “return of people smugglers” to that route. “Last spring, 575 illegal migrants had been detained compared with 3,140 during the same period this year.”
He said the protective wall erected by Turkiye at its border with Syria and Iran and the ongoing construction of another wall at the Greek border would ensure that those seeking to enter Europe could be “vetted”.
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