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Hungary will send a letter to the European Commission asking it to cover at least part of the costs of the country’s border fence, the prime minister’s chief of staff said on Thursday.

Migration pressure on Europe’s borders is growing and is expected to keep increasing, Gergely Gulyás told a regular press briefing.

“It would be nice if the European Commission switched from supporting migration to supporting the protection of external borders because if we don’t want Europe to be destabilised during the pandemic and the economic recovery, then we need effective border protection, which requires proper European approval,” he said.

PM Orbán on Border Protection: "Brussels is betraying Hungary and the European people"
PM Orbán on Border Protection:

Orbán inspected the Hungary-Serbia border with his Czech counterpart Andrej Babis on Wednesday.Continue reading

The pressure of migration is growing as a result of the situation in Afghanistan and events at the Belarus border, he said. The number of illegal border crossing attempts is currently a daily average of 319 as against 97 in the same period of last year, he added.

A debate on handling migration is again under way in Europe, and for the time being “the European Commission is unfortunately on the side of migration”, he said. The commissioner for home affairs recently said that post-pandemic recovery was only possible with the involvement of migrants and migrant organizations, he added.

Gulyás said the EC was unable to grasp “the right answer” to the problem, but a growing number of people, he added, were starting to realize it. He cited European People’s Party group leader Manfred Weber who, Gulyás said, had clearly voiced support for the construction of physical borders and called on the EU to contribute to border protection.

Featured photo illustration by Tamás Kovács/MTI


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