Hungary is being punished to force it “to toe the line and let migrants in”, an interior ministry official told public radio on Sunday.
Hungary will continue to protect the EU’s external borders, state secretary Bence Rétvári said, adding that the country “does not accept” the European Court of Justice ruling against Hungary for actions taken against migration.
“The ruling is clearly not a legal decision but the exertion of political pressure,” he said.
“They imposed a record fine seventy times the amount originally requested in the petition, to force Hungary to let illegal migrants into the country and to toe the line of [those countries] which voted for the migration pact, which means the automatic acceptance and resettlement of illegal migrants.”
“Hungary will not budge”, however, no matter the pressure, and will stick to its stance on the protection of the southern border, too, Rétvári said, calling the fine “entirely illegitimate and unfounded” and vowing that Hungary “will not pay it”.
He said migration posed an “unprecedented” threat to European public safety, adding that it was being organised “by the same circles that earlier profited hugely from drug and arms trafficking, and prostitution”.
He said people smuggling was even more lucrative, adding that in Sweden “a knife-attack or explosion takes place every second day, organised by criminal gangs which are now getting most of their money and new recruits thanks to illegal migration.”
Rétvári said some 2,000 people had fallen victim to terrorism in Europe in the past decade. “It is nonsense that Hungary is being penalised for protecting their security.”
He called the 80 billion forint (EUR 200m) fine — with a further 400 million (EUR 1m) forints to be paid for every day of non-compliance — “racketeering”.
“Brussels wants to strip member states of their ability to protect themselves,” he said.
Hungary should be reimbursed, not punished, for the wages of police deployed at the border and for building the fence which “protects our southern border, the external border of the union”.
He said “Brussels bureaucrats” expected police to help migrants, “who arrive in large groups, often armed with knives”, to submit their asylum requests “instead of protecting the border”.
Hungary “will not support migration or enter the ranks of pro-war countries”, he said. Hungarians “have expressed their will for illegal migration to be stopped at the southern border”, he added.
Since 2015, the country had shown that the border could be protected and migration stopped, he said. Hungarian police “are working effectively at Serbia’s southern border, too, alongside Austrian officers,” he said.
Meanwhile, many Western European politicians, he said, saw migration as a “logistical problem”. This attitude, he added, put the decision as to who and how many enter Europe into the hands of people smugglers.
Rétvári said the new arrivals sent the subsidies received to their home country to support others in coming to Europe. “Western European subsidies thus land in the pockets of people smugglers… That’s how public safety deteriorates year after year in European metropolises,” he said.
Read also:
After watching what just happened in the UK, made me wonder if Brexit, (and supposedly HUXIT) really improved the migration situation in UK. I Mean, brexiters were promoting to get the control back of their borders (surprise, is an island, they already had the control) and immigrants are still arriving to UK, so their daydream is not working. Now imagine Hungary, out of the EU, eventually immigrants could como with or without fences. I really think that if you want to control the migration, yes, you can pur any physical borders, but if you dont want them here, you will have to either deport them or send them to jail. I can not see any other solution.
Dear Bence Rétvári, first of all, no migrants want to stay in the poorest country in the EU, they move west to actually make a living wage. Second, your administration just released a trainload of people smugglers. Do you think they smuggle them to live in this poor country? Third, you administration has left in tens of thousands of “guest laborers”, another fancy name for ecomomic migrants, the very same ones you want to banish, even though they do not stay here. Stop grandstanding to get your name in the papers, no one cares what you think.
Expect pressure, fines, and penalties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Justice
Hungary signed up for this, it relinquished part of its sovereignty… It is not a pick and choose situation.
Re reimbursement – it is always prudent to agree with the people who you expect / want to pay for whatever you are doing ahead of time. Mexico did not pay for those bits of wall, did it, now? All the rhetoric notwithstanding.
Whatever your political leanings and affiliations, this is beyond outrageous!
How on earth can we accept unelected foreign bureaucrats dictating our immigration policy!?!
The E.U. is totally out of control and needs to be reined in, pronto!
I guess, if the EU has their way, Hungary will end up using the illegal and unqualified migrants to build the nuclear power station, since EU doesn’t seem to want Hungary to allow expert Russian and Belarus nuclear engineers in to do the job.
@paul – we could have opted for a German / French / American or even UK option. However, our Politicians are very keen on China and Russia, for some reason. My Russian friends tell me this is because they “understand” the Hungarian way of business better. And then there are anti-bribery laws in some of the other jurisdictions to contend with.
And – it is always (ALWAYS) possible to obtain work visas for specialists. All the rest of Schengen is demanding, is serious background checks regarding any of these individuals.
Everything the Hungarian Minister of the Interior said in this article is absolutely correct. I support it absolutely.
This is a plot by globalists, mainly led by Zionists in the USA, to intentionally plunge countries in the Middle East and Africa into chaos, causing refugees to flow out and forcing European countries to accept them, thereby causing chaos and weakening them, and unfortunately this plot has been successful in many countries.
Recently, there are no signs of major problems caused by immigration, such as those currently occurring in England, occurring in Hungary. Thanks to this, major cities in Hungary, including Budapest, are peaceful.
Recently, there are no signs of major problems caused by immigration, such as those currently occurring in England, occurring in Hungary. Thanks to this, major cities in Hungary, including Budapest, are peaceful.
This shows how correct and effective the Orban administration has been in continuing to pursue its own immigration policy without succumbing to criticism and pressure from those around it.
This is truly amazing, and I’m sure people in countries suffering from the immigration crisis are envious of Hungary.
It can even be said that the Hungarian people should be grateful to the current Hungarian government for its excellent work.
The ECU, or European Communist Union, seems to be trying again to make some strange accusations and put pressure on us by imposing fines, but you must never give in to this power.
There is no need to pay such unfounded fines. Now is the time for all Hungarians to make an effort to protect their country and culture. Please do your best, I support you.
Everything the Hungarian Minister of the Interior said in this article is absolutely correct. I support it absolutely.
This is a plot by globalists, mainly led by Zionists in the USA, to intentionally plunge countries in the Middle East and Africa into chaos, causing refugees to flow out and forcing European countries to accept them, thereby causing chaos and weakening them, and unfortunately this plot has been successful in many countries.
Recently, there are no signs of major problems caused by immigration, such as those currently occurring in England, occurring in Hungary. Thanks to this, major cities in Hungary, including Budapest, are peaceful.
Recently, there are no signs of major problems caused by immigration, such as those currently occurring in England, occurring in Hungary. Thanks to this, major cities in Hungary, including Budapest, are peaceful.
This shows how correct and effective the Orban administration has been in continuing to pursue its own immigration policy without succumbing to criticism and pressure from those around it.
This is truly amazing, and I’m sure people in countries suffering from the immigration crisis are envious of Hungary.
It can even be said that the Hungarian people should be grateful to the current Hungarian government for its excellent work.
The ECU, or European Communist Union, seems to be trying again to make some strange accusations and put pressure on us by imposing fines, but you must never give in to this power.
There is no need to pay such unfounded fines. Now is the time for all Hungarians to make an effort to protect their country and culture. Please do your best, I support you.
Agree entirely with Norbert.
Hungary’s pristine soil does not need to be soiled by migrants. It took years to clean-up the country from the garbage the 2015 illegals left in the country. The soil had to be replaced around Keleti station, it was so soiled by harmful bacteria. I am sure that hygiene was better in the Middle Ages. The people illegally entered the country were on par with the cave men.
Now, Hungary does protect its border. There is no reason for Hungary to protect the EU border since Hungary is being punished for keeping out the barbarians. The EU cannot have it both ways. It is truly just that the smugglers should go to countries that support open borders and foreign invasions.
In other words, the EU wants child molesters, rapist, murderers, they should pick up the criminals from their home countries. Hungarians are the only true heirs of the Hungarian motherland.
EH Japanese, one small problem with your comment. The issue in the UK was caused by people like Victor, extreme nationalists that are using this one incident to savage the small towns with the small minds that they come from.
The British government did not enact suitable laws to keep the uneducated, unassimilable out of the country. If the previous government had any guts, they would have deported all nonrefugee claimants. Brexit would have succeeded with prime minister Farage. Unfortunately, the British public failed to use their minds at election times. Now, Starmer is siding with Muslims and descendants of migrant murderer instead of the victims’ families and the British people. This cannot happen in Hungary under FIDESZ. Hungarians already expressed their opinion, and the majority vetoed the entry of uneducated, lazy, dirty lying refugee claimants through a referendum. The majority vetoed the entry of the invaders.
It is time to bring back legal immigration methods. Previously, people wanting to move to another country would submit an application either at local consulate or third country consulate. The application was assessed.
Refugees should be given protection; a good example is the people fleeing war in in Ukraine. The Ukrainians do deserve protection. However, most migrants are economic refugees and do not deserve instant entry, taxpayer housing, free health care and total support. Those people that do not meet the UN definition of a refugee should be immediately deported.
Countries have the right to limit the number of migrants. In cases of high unemployment, the number of migrants should be reduced.