Hungary backs down over threats to pull out of EU rules on accepting asylum seekers
U-turn comes as Eastern European nations reject Brussels quota plan for migrants
By Colin Freeman, Chief foreign correspondent, 7:18PM BST 24 Jun 2015, Source
Afghan men are guarded by Hungarian police officers at the Hungarian-Serbian border
Eastern European nations clashed with Brussels last night over plans to introduce quotas for migrants, as Austria and Hungary traded blows over threats by Budapest to tear up European Union rules on accepting asylum seekers.
In a sign of how divided the continent remains on how to deal with the people-trafficking crisis, the prime ministers of Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia issued a joint statement saying that mandatory quotas would put an “unacceptable” burden on Europe’s poorer ex-Communist nations.
The EU has proposed that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean asylum-seekers should be redistributed and that 20,000 Syrians living in camps outside Europe should be resettled across the 28-nation bloc.
The move came as Budapest appeared to back down over a threat made on Tuesday to opt out of the EU’s Dublin III regulation, which stipulates that all migrants should claim asylum in the first EU country that they set foot in. Hungary, which has had a huge surge in the numbers of migrants coming in via its border with Serbia, said it wanted to suspend the rule to “protect Hungary’s interests and population”.
Yesterday, however, Hungary said that it would not press ahead with the move, as neighbouring Austria warned that it would re-instate border controls in response. “Hungary’s decision is completely unacceptable for us,” said Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Austria’s interior minister. Hungary said it had merely requested a period of grace from fellow EU member states to help deal with the refugee burden.
This year, more than 50,000 migrants tried to cross into Hungary via Serbia between January 1 and 31 May - an 880 percent increase compared to the same period in 2014, according to new figures by the EU’s Frontex border agency. It meant that Hungary received more asylum-seekers per capita than any other EU country apart from Sweden in 2014, up to nearly 43,000 from just 2,000 in 2012.
Budapest revealed recently that it would build a 13 foot fence on its southern border with Serbia, through which most migrants come into the country.
Viktor Orban, the right-wing Hungarian prime minister, has been among the harshest critics of EU plans to manage the upsurge in migrant numbers by spreading the burden around the 28-nation bloc. Britain has also refused to take quotas. The four eastern European nations’ joint statement said that all EU members should bear the burden of the migration crisis. It was issued ahead of an EU summit on migration scheduled for tomorrow and Friday.