March 01, 2017•Update: March 01, 2017
BUDAPEST
Hungary will not accept any refugee sent by other European Union countries, a minister in charge of the Hungarian Prime Ministry said late Tuesday.
"Western European countries, especially Germany and Sweden, want to send about 30,000 migrants back to Hungary. We will not accept them," Janos Lazar told reporters during a conference in Budapest.
Lazar said such a demand would spark debate in the coming months. "The migrants did not enter the EU zone from Hungary — they entered from Greece. Hungary will not take any step to back them," he added.
As part of measures against refugees, Hungary has reinforced it borders with soldiers and police with the support of the Visegrad Group partners — a cultural and political alliance that also includes the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.
In 2015, Hungary installed razor wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia to stop the refugee flow. Additionally, it implemented stiffer penalties, including jail time, for illegal crossings and announcing a state of emergency in border areas.
According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 500,000 refugees entered Greece in 2015. Many crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece with the ultimate goal of reaching other EU countries, including Austria, Germany, and France.
Before Hungarian measures to close its borders took effect, a popular refugee route went through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria.
Reporting by Mehmet Yilmaz; Writing by Burcu Arik
