Orbán cabinet demands EU money for border protection against illegal migrants

The European Union should deploy member states’ resources to protect the bloc’s external borders, but it is failing in doing so and has even imposed a daily fine on Hungary “for protecting its external borders”, Bence Rétvári, a state secretary at the interior ministry, said in Brussels on Wednesday.

Border protection is essential

Rétvári told a press conference after a meeting of EU interior ministers that the EU received 981,000 asylum requests in 2024, second highest after 2016, when some 1 million were registered. This year, the number of requests may reach 1.1 million, he insisted. “Pro-migration forces plan to have one million migrant arrive in Europe every year, while the negative effects of illegal migration are obvious,” Rétvári said.

Schengen Area falters

“Besides constant terror threat and increasingly frequent attacks, the Schengen Area is also faltering,” Rétvári said. While it is “in theory” based on the principle of free movement, an increasing number of countries including Italy, Germany, Sweden and France have so far introduced border checks, he said. That harms one of the EU’s fundamental goals, open borders, he said. “The situation is worse now than it was 5 years ago as internal borders are less and less open.”

Due to the EU’s inactivity, member states are increasingly taking the protection of external borders into their own hands, he said. Austrian, Czech and Slovak border guards have helped out on Hungary’s southern border in the past years, the state secretary added. Joint action was launched on the Turkish-Bulgarian border in 2024 with the participation of Bulgarian, Romanian, Austrian and Hungarian forces, and Croatian, Slovene and Italian authorities are cooperating to stop illegal migration on the Bosnian border, he said.