As Janos Lazar spoke, Hungarian police and army troops were out in force in Zakany, on the border with Croatia, where a train station created to handle cargo has settled into a routine of processing thousands of arriving refugees each day.
Advertisement
Hungary’s Prime Minister says that Germany is forcing their “moral imperialism” into the refugee crisis in Europe.
European Union leaders are due to meet in Brussels at 1600 GMT (5 p.m. BST) for an emergency summit at which they could promise billions of euros in new funding for Syrian refugees.
Hungarian Jews were the largest single group among the 1.1 million people killed in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. This includes taxi drivers taking migrants to the Austrian border for extortionate sums, and people-smugglers hiding migrants in trucks and driving them north. On the street, private money-changers are giving some refugees 200 forints for a euro, even though the bank rate is over 300 forints.
Formerly a radical voice for liberalism in Hungary, previous year Orban openly advocated for illiberal democracy, like Turkey’s and Russia’s, as a successful model for states.
“In this sense, EU’s external border is not yet protected and migrants, in violation of worldwide agreements, continue to come through Greece”, said Orban. That agreement covered 54,000 migrants in Hungary as well as another 66,000 now in Greece and Italy.
Hungary, the EU’s toughest anti-refugee government, has also questioned the feasibility of the plan.
A girl cries at the “Horgos 2” border crossing into Hungary, near Horgos, Serbia, September 17, 2015.
Orban has called the flow of migrants an “all-out attack on Christianity and Christian values”.
Thomas Jaeger, a political scientist at Cologne University, said the invitation could be part of a strategy to cover a range of views stretching from the welcoming one – represented by Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s doors – to closing borders. Of course that treaty has benefited Hungary and eastern European nations disproportionately. According to the minister, this showed that they were no longer seeking safety, but rather wanted to choose the country with the most attractive economic situation.
Advertisement
“Ultimately we Bavarians should be thankful that the Hungarians are helping to protect the southern borders of Bavaria”, said Mechthilde Wittmann, a lawyer and CSU politician. Many migrants have been travelling through these countries on their way to more prosperous European states in the north and west.
