Hungary wants EU to reimburse half of border control costs

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has asked the European Commission to reimburse Hungary for half its spending on border protection, the government office chief said on Thursday.

János Lázár said at a regular press briefing that the total cost since the start of the migrant crisis amounted to 800 million euros.

Lázár said the issue of border protection should be discussed “in the name of European solidarity” and “solidarity must be demonstrated in practice”, so the EU should bear a part of Hungary’s costs.

By building a border fence and training “border-hunter” units, Hungary has been protecting the whole Schengen area, not only Hungarian citizens, Lázár said. Hungarian police and soldiers are instrumental in ensuring the safety of all European citizens, he added.

Lázár noted that several countries have already received help from the European Commission. Greece has already received half of the 1 billion euros promised, he said, while Italy is to receive 656 million, and Bulgaria 100 million euros. It is time Hungary also made a request, Lázár said.

Plans to build migrant camps in Libya accord with the Hungarian government’s stance aimed at halting illegal migration outside the European Union, Lázár said.

Lázár noted that for the past two years the government had proposed creating hotspots outside the bloc. Migrants staying at the facilities would be made to follow necessary procedures, he said, adding that the government supported endeavours to return migrants to their homelands and eliminate the causes of migration.

The government has prolonged the state of emergency introduced in connection with the migration crisis until March 7, Lázár said. The state of emergency would have ended on Sept. 7, he noted.

In the first eight months of the year, 773 migrants entered Hungary illegally, Lázár said. Without Hungary’s fence along its southern borders “the numbers would be comparable to two years ago,” he added.

On the subject of EU action taken against Poland, Lázár said that the European Commission and Germany had “launched a campaign” against Poland and were applying “double standards”. Hungary supports the Polish people and their government, he said.

Regarding the lawsuit Hungary and Slovakia has brought against the European Commission on the resettlement quota scheme of asylum seekers, Lázár noted the European Court of Justice is to reach a decision next week. “If the Hungarian government does not come to an agreement with the European Commission or has its doubts”, they will not hesitate to return to court, he said. The procedure so far only aimed to establish whether the quota scheme was in accordance with European legislation, he said.

Government office chief addresses range of topics in weekly presser

In a weekly government press briefing on Thursday, Lázár informed the press: they are contributing to the developments of the municipalities of 152 small localities, inter alia, for the refurbishment of roads, pavements, kindergartens and playgrounds. They will also extend the deadline for the completion of the manuals regarding the townscapes of localities: municipalities will have until 31 December instead of 31 October.

He listed among the Government’s decisions that they will facilitate the importation of textbooks for the National Serb Self-Government, a new watering system will be installed on an area of 27 thousand hectares in the Mezőhegyes Stud Farm, and four medical universities will be given excess grants.

The Cabinet further decided that the Seuso treasures will be displayed at exhibitions to be held in Kaposvár, Kecskemét, Miskolc, Nyíregyháza, Székesfehérvár and Zalaegerszeg, and HUF 300 million will be allocated for the organisation of the exhibitions.

Mr Lázár offered his condolences at the press conference Governmentinfo to the relatives of the Kossuth Prize winning film director Károly Makk who passed away on Wednesday. His death is an enormous loss to Hungarian culture, he said.

In answer to the enquiry that, according to press reports, certain senior managerial jobs in state administration could only be awarded to persons with political science degrees obtained from the Public Service University as of 2023, the Minister said: there is no final decision yet, but according to the Government a system should be created where, in the case of certain jobs, a university degree in political science should be a condition of hiring, while in other cases, it would be an advantage.