Orbán cabinet: EU funds earmarked for support of migrants should be spent on border control

Funds earmarked by the European Union for the support of migrants should instead be spent on protecting the bloc’s external borders, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said on Thursday.

At his regular press briefing, Gergely Gulyás said it was “unacceptable” that while the EU was supporting “countless forms of migration” and providing migrants with financial aid with a view to helping with their integration, it had not supported Hungary’s border protection efforts.

The 300 billion forints (EUR 938.5m) Hungary has spent on border protection was financed entirely from the state budget, Gulyás said. The EU has not reimbursed any of those costs, he added.

He welcomed that a provision opposed by the Hungarian government, under which the EU’s border agency Frontex could intervene in a member state’s border protection efforts without the country’s consent, had been left out of an agreement recently approved by the European Parliament on bolstering the agency’s staff.

Gulyás said that

next month, Europeans should elect a European Parliament that fights migration instead of supporting it.

In response to a question, Gulyás said ruling Fidesz had yet to agree on a date with the European People’s Party for the visit of the grouping’s delegation, adding, however, that a visit was likely to happen after the EP elections.

Asked about the Hungarian government’s contribution to the reconstruction of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the PM’s Office chief said

Hungary was ready to help if France indicated how Hungary could be of assistance.