“Without border protection, Hungary would be a halfway house and an assembly-point for migrants, and Europe would be defenceless, and accordingly the Government in no way supports Brussels’ latest efforts aimed at taking border protection away from member states”, the Ministry of Interior’s Parliamentary State Secretary said in a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI following his hearings before various parliamentary committees on Wednesday.
According to Károly Kontrát, since the beginning of mass migration, Hungarian border protecting has proven that if the political will exists it is possible to protect Europe’s Schengen borders and illegal migration can be stopped.
“Hungarian border protection is standing in the way of the pro-immigration forces because they don’t want to stop migration, but organise and legalise it. This is why they want to take away the right to protect our borders, so they can allow in even more migrants”, he declared.
The State Secretary stressed that the Government will be doing everything possible to defend Hungary from these plans. He also spoke about the fact that Parliament’s National Security Committee discussed the issue of border protection and listened to reports from the Government and national security services on Tuesday, after which on Wednesday the National Defence and Law Enforcement Committee examined the issue. “All of the experts who spoke before the committees agreed that migration will continue to be an extremely serious problem for Europe in the upcoming period”, he said.
“The Balkan migration route remains active. Huge numbers of migrants are waiting in Greece, Turkey and Serbia, and millions of economic migrants still want to reach Europe from Africa”, he explained. “This means that border protection will continue to be required in the long term, because migration pressure will not decrease by itself, especially while Brussels has a pro-immigration administration”, the State Secretary said.
Illegal migration in the direction of Hungary has only decreased as a result of border protection and the security fence, he said, explaining that this is what has forced migrants to find new migration routes and this is what is deterring many from attempting to enter Europe via Hungary.
“If Hungary were to cease its border protection or hand it over to Brussels, the country would once again become a halfway house, and in view of tighter Austrian border security the migrants would begin accumulating in Hungary, as has occurred in the Balkans, where caring for thousands of migrants and the related security and public health problems are already causing a crisis situation”, Mr. Kontrát said.