A government official has said border protection and security cannot be delegated to those who would be happy to tear down the border fence.
Csaba Dömötör, state secretary in the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, said Hungary has not insisted on protecting its borders for centuries to give up this right to those who do not consider it a top priority.
The state secretary said the Salzburg EU summit had shown that border protection has become the new focus of the debate on migration.
Dömötör said a proposal was presented at the meeting “with the aim that member states should give up their right to border protection” and assign it to Brussels and Frontex. “This is unacceptable to the government for several reasons,” he said.
Hungary is able to protect its borders, but many politicians in Brussels do not want to do the same, he pointed out.
Dömötör reiterated the government’s position that if a member state believes it cannot protect its borders, that country should be offered assistance. But the right to border protection must not be taken away from member states who are capable of doing this themselves, he said.
The state secretary said there were also other Brussels-backed plans behind the proposal on border protection that he said would support migration rather than stop it. He said one of these was “taking away our right to decide who is a refugee and who is an economic migrant”.