Following shootings by migrants at the southern borders, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s office, said professionally trained border units had been set up to tackle the problem and protect the borders by all possible means.
Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international communications and relations, told the briefing that since the start of the war, some 1.15 million people had crossed the Hungarian border, 38,000 had submitted an asylum request and 34,000 of these have been approved. Many of these latter are staying in Hungary and there are also some who are commuters, he added. On the subject of Ukraine, he said the government maintained three principles in connection with helping the country: Hungary supported the country under attack in various forms but “we do not supply weapons and we cannot give financial help”, and “we have a vested interest in Ukraine remaining functional”. “We believe that a ceasefire and the start of peace talks as soon as possible would clearly serve these principles,” he said. “But we cannot support a non-EU country from the EU budget, certainly not as long as all member states are not receiving the budget resources they are entitled to,” he added.
Commenting on banning Russian sportspeople from international competitions, Gulyás said it was generally incorrect to exclude sportspeople based on their nationality. A good solution may be if they were not to compete under the national colours and only those excluded were members of the military, he said. Gulyás said Hungary was trying to maintain a clear moral principle based on Ukraine being a country under attack which therefore needs help. “This is why we are providing humanitarian aid and receiving refugees, offering them financial support,” he added. However, when Ukrainian policies run counter to the ethnic Hungarian community, violating all European standards, “we will raise our voice and in certain cases make it clear that Hungary’s friendly behaviour has limits”, he said. “The fact that Russia has attacked Ukraine in violation of international laws does not make Ukraine less corrupt,” he added.