Additionally, Hungary’s center-right government was expected to receive Wednesday a report about the cost, route and construction time table of a four meter (13-foot) high razor-wire fence it plans to build along its 175 kilometer (109 mile) border with Serbia.
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Hungarian officials hit back at suggestions made by Austria and other states that they would consider sending immigrants back to Hungary, arguing that if that logic is pursued, then Hungary should send asylum seekers back to Greece, where numerous illegal immigrants first entered the EU.
Austria itself stopped processing asylum requests this month, in an effort to pressure other EU states to do more to help absorb waves of refugees.
Europe is struggling to cope with an influx of migrants, and one state in particular-Hungary-has had enough.
“Hungary has exhausted the resources at its disposal”, Kovacs said.
“As the Dublin rules don’t foresee the suspension of transfers by the receiving Member States, the Commission has asked Hungary for immediate clarification on the nature and extent of the technical failure, and on the measures taken to remedy the situation”.
“Hungary is taking a share in the management of the situation caused by illegal migration beyond its means”, the Hungarian government said.
According to the Dublin rules, however, these nations can return the asylum seekers to Hungary to process their application.
“The right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban on June 23 announced it was indefinitely opting out of the so-called Dublin III regulation because of “technical reasons“”.
The announcement comes just days after Hungary announced a plan to erect a border fence against migrants.
Freedom of movement across internal borders is a fundamental principle of the EU, but the flow of hundreds of thousands of non-EU migrants across the bloc -many trying to head northwards to countries such as Germany or Sweden – is testing governments’ commitment to that ideal.
Hungary has detained 60,620 undocumented immigrants this year, including 60,089 along the Serbian section of the border, according to the Interior Ministry.
EU leaders are due to debate a new scheme Thursday to relocate Mediterranean migrants landing in Italy and Greece. Apart from Serbia and Ukraine, Hungary has land borders only with fellow EU member states, mostly with no checkpoints.
The EU has proposed that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers should be redistributed and that 20,000 Syrians living in camps outside Europe should be resettled across the 28-nation bloc.
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