Orban Summit: Central European Countries Agree to Extend Border Fence

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY - OCTOBER 03: (L-R) Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Hungarian Prime
Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić met Monday in Budapest to discuss the surge of new activity along the Balkan migrant route.

Prime Minister Orbán and the other two leaders made a statement following the Monday meeting that argued the European Union asylum system no longer works and stated that the European Commission has not been active in tackling the issue for several years.

The three also agreed to strengthen the border fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border, which will be extended nearly seven miles and the height of the fence itself will be increased from around 13 feet to just over 16 feet, the Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung reports.

“We are suffering from illegal migration, which costs time, money and energy,” Prime Minister Orbán said and added that migration has taken a back seat to other issues such that the looming energy crisis and the war in Ukraine.

Orbán added that cooperation between the three countries would be furthered with additional meetings set to take place in Vienna and Belgrade in the future where more concrete proposals would be decided upon.

“Serbia does not want to become a hotspot, we do not want people to stay with us,” Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said and added that Serbia is a poorer country than both Hungary and Austria and the looming energy crisis particularly affect his country.

Activity along the Balkan route has surged this year and become the busiest in all of Europe according to the European Union border agency Frontex, which claimed the activity on the route had increased by 167 per cent in a report from June.

A report from last month revealed that over 86,000 migrants have crossed into the European Union along the Balkan route by the end of August, over double the number of migrants who crossed the English Channel during the same period.

“The Western Balkan route continues to be the most active migratory route into the EU with 15 900 detections in August, 141% more than last year. The high number of illegal border crossings can be attributed to repeated crossing attempts by migrants already present in the Western Balkans,” Frontex said.

 

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.

 

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.