In a recent article, Politiken quotes Zsolt Gulyás, deputy police captain in Csongrád County, who accompanied Danish visitors to the Röszke Transit Zone, dismissing the myth that Hungary's transit zones for asylum seekers are closed.
"We do not hold asylum-seekers captive. They are free to leave towards Serbia anytime. The circumstances inside the containers are completely appropriate. There is TV, internet, nursery school. Everybody gets the calories they need," Zsolt Gulyás, explained.
Hungarian authorities have received International criticism of late for their border practices, but Gulyás says that all investigations prove his officers are innocent of any wrongdoing.
Meanwhile, Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has defended Hungary's border protection measures and highlighted that they have helped Europe from being besieged by a wave of migrants.
“Only extremely strict Hungarian border protection and the fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border have provided a solution to illegal immigration recently," Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said on Monday.
“Migration pressure is far from over, as proven by the fact that over 50,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, 47 percent more than during the same period last year, and 1,054 migrants have entered Romania, which represents an increase of 70 percent, minister Szijjártó added.
Hungary's chief security advisor recently said that border security is the key to homeland security. “It would be pretty difficult to talk about homeland security” if we didn’t check people who enter the country, György Bakondi, the chief security advisor to the prime minister, said.
Bakondi explained that thanks to Hungary's security measures the number of people entering the country illegally has fallen to practically zero, “but the system will also be able to prevent mass, illegal and aggressive migration in the case of much higher pressure”.
The delegation visiting the Hungarian border at Röszke included a representative of the Danish People’s Party, Anders Vistisen, who called for a border fence with motion sensors to be constructed on Denmark’s border with Germany, according to Politiken.
Vistisen argued the measure was needed to regain control over the Scandinavian country’s borders. Vistisen added that he has been to Hungary to witness first-hand how effective Hungary's border protection mechanism is. “We really like what we have seen in Hungary, we want the exact same system," he said.
The Orbán Government opposes such measures, however, because the Danish-German border is an internal border of the Schengen Area where border crossings are intended to remain open to allow for free movement within the European Union. Returning to border checks and passport controls on the internal borders would undermine the achievements of the EU's Schengen Area and negatively affect the lives of European citizens. The Orbán Government has been a strong proponent of more determined efforts to secure the external borders of the EU precisely in order to protect the freedom of movement within Schengen.