Minister of the Interior Sándor Pintér proposes the establishing of refugee camps outside the territory of the EU. In his opinion, all those fleeing persecution should be received once the asylum procedure has been conducted in these camps, while individual member states should be free to decide individually whether or not to receive economic immigrants.
The Minister talked about the issue at a conference organised in Budapest by the Századvég Foundation, entitled “Modern Migration: Europe faces a new challenge”.
According to Mr. Pintér, Europe currently maintains a hard-to-fulfil, twofold expectation towards Hungary with relation to immigration. Namely, the country is not allowed to keep people with ongoing asylum procedures in custody, but is nevertheless expected to prevent their further migration to the West, he explained.
Minister Pintér emphasised that saving human lives is the priority, and therefore those fleeing war or persecution must under all circumstances be received; the dispute concerns the handling of economic immigrants who arrive illegally.
Mr. Pintér emphasised that immigrants arriving from the direction of Turkey first cross the borders of the European Union in Greece or Bulgaria, yet their first registration still occurs in Hungary. This year, a total of sixty-two thousand people have been registered so far. According to the Minister, Bulgaria and Greece have not fulfilled their obligations in accordance with the Dublin Convention, either because immigrants have circumvented their authorities, or because those authorities did not perform their work successfully.
As an example, Mr. Pintér pointed out that none of the 1314 immigrants caught at the Hungarian-Serbian border on Thursday – who have made aggressive demands to be transferred on towards the West – had been previously registered despite the fact that the majority of them came from Afghanistan and Pakistan and so the must already have crossed at least one EU border before reaching Hungary.
As a result of this situation, Hungary has decided to erect a temporary fence on the Hungarian-Serbian border to protect the country from illegal immigrants, the Minister explained, stressing that great emphasis is also being placed on detecting trafficking networks. He pointed out that over six hundred trafficking teams have been caught so far with the help of Austria, Serbia and Europol, but they are continuously being replaced by new ones as members of such teams can often earn several times their annual income with a single successful operation.
The Minister of the Interior said that Hungary will provide technical and personnel support for the defence of the Macedonian-Serbian border. Moreover, Serbian border control is currently supported by 40 Austrian police officers who will shortly be joined by 80 German colleagues.
Sándor Pintér also said that the return of 15,600 migrants from Western Europe had also been initiated in addition to the 62,000 people who have had asylum procedures launched against them after entering Hungary illegally.
He highlighted that it is in their case that Hungary has asked Europe to make the reception of these migrants voluntary instead of compulsory, since for instance both France and Italy, which are economically stronger, have each had to handle 20,000 fewer migrants so far this year.
Sándor Pintér also mentioned that migration also represents a terrorist threat, since for instance if the Islamic State should suffer a military defeat, it would be the members of the terrorist organisation who would begin heading for the EU.
According to President of Századvég Foundation András Lánczi, migration is equally an issue of demographics, security policy, ethics and philosophy, and can be considered one of the biggest crises the EU has had to face since its establishment.
The expert is of the opinion that the Hungarian Government opted for the right strategy when it put forward solutions based on the interests of the country rather than emotions. András Láczi called the fact that it transpired overnight in Brussels that Hungary’s right to prevent migrants from entering the country would be assessed on an individual basis, a success for the Government.
Director General of the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade Márton Schőberl also said he considered it a success for Hungary that the European public is now finally aware of the fact that Hungary is under higher pressure from migration than certain countries in the Mediterranean region.