Retvari: Government plans legal steps against Brussels’ migrant measures

Under the EC’s implementing decision, Hungary would be responsible for processing the applications of over one-fourth of the illegal migrants entering the area of the European Union, Retvari told Kossuth Radio. That number is “disproportionately large” and paves the way for “migrant ghettos”, he added.

Brussels is requiring Hungary to expand its capacity for processing applications and expects the country to quadruple it by 2028, he said.

He added that the government was sticking to the position it had held since 2015: illegal migrants must not be allowed to cross the EU frontier, in compliance with Hungarian and EU rules.

He noted that Hungary’s spending on border protection had come to 2 billion euros.

He said a 78 billion forint (EUR 200m) fine and a daily 1 million euro penalty Hungary had to pay under a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU was “political pressure” to get Hungary to let in migrants.

Along with Hungary, EU member states in the region are, in general, opposed to allowing in masses of illegal migrants, he said. If Brussels really wants masses of migrants, Hungary is weighing the possibility of sending those who cross the Hungarian border directly to Brussels, he added.

He pointed to the negative economic impact of border checks within the EU’s passport-free Schengen zone established because the EU’s frontiers couldn’t be protected.

He said the recent murder of children in the UK’s Southport showed that even the children of migrants to the EU weren’t integrating.

He added that the EU could only implement one in ten returns of illegal migrants, and there was no guarantee those who were returned wouldn’t attempt to come back.