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PM Orban Reiterates His Demand for the EU to Reimburse Costs of Fences at Hungarian Borders [1]
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Date: 2021-11-04 15:27:15+00:00
Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, has once again called on the European Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen to work on the reimbursement of the costs of the border fences at the Hungarian EU external borders.
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In a letter addressed to the European Commission President, Orbán has stressed that Hungary’s border protection measures had become “exemplary” in Europe, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
Hungary’s PM has stressed in the letter that a new migration crisis is unfolding at the doorstep of the EU.
“As you are well aware, the hybrid uses of migration stemming from Belarus, as well as the disastrous evacuation of the security forces from Afghanistan, may bring forth an even more severe crisis than what we have witnessed in 2015,” the Prime Minister has pointed out.
Last month, Hungarian authorities announced that the number of persons who attempted to cross the country’s borders in an unlawful way was 319 on average per day compared to 97 reported during the same period one year earlier.
Due to such an increase in the number of people who attempted to enter Hungary illegally, the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, Gergely Gulyás, called on the EU authorities to cover one part of the costs of the country’s border fence.
The PM also stressed that Hungary had allocated a total of 590 billion forints (EUR 1.64bn) from its budget in order to protect the borders.
“It is therefore time for the Commission to do what it should have done years ago and recognise that the protection of the external borders is an indisputable manifestation of European solidarity and that the efforts of Member States in this context deserve recognition and support,” Orbán pointed out.
In addition, Orbán stressed that Hungary is among the first countries to invest in the border fence, which “has shown over the past years that it can safeguard the safety of EU citizens as well as the EU as a whole.”
According to the PM, the current migration situation has shown that physical barriers have helped in order to protect the borders and combat hybrid attacks.
“All this justifies the arguments and funding demands that Hungary has long been stating,” he pointed out.
The Hungarian Prime Minister also mentioned the joint letter signed by the Interior Ministers of Austria, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Greece, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, in which they stressed that physical barriers resulted in being an effective preventive measure in order to protect the borders.
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[1] Url:
https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/news/pm-orban-reiterates-his-demand-for-the-eu-to-reimburse-costs-of-fences-at-hungarian-borders/
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