Germany With Tough Border Controls After Hungary Bussing Threats

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BERLIN/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Germany’s government announced it would reintroduce tighter passport controls at all of its land borders shortly after Hungary threatened to send buses with “illegal migrants” to Brussels.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said Monday the move was necessary to counter irregular migration and protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism.

Faeser added on Monday that the controls within what is usually a wide area of free movement—the European Schengen zone—will start on September 16 and initially last for six months.

It comes amid mounting pressure after several people were killed and injured in recent attacks linked to Islamic terrorism. However, the move also came after Hungary’s rightwing government announced it would offer “illegal migrants” to take buses “free of charge” to Brussels, the European Union’s effective capital and seat of its executive European Commission.

Standing next to the buses, Rétvári Bence, Hungary’s deputy interior minister, told journalists that
“If the European Union forces Hungary to accept illegal migrants, Hungary will offer to transport them to Brussels once the process is complete.”

Last week, Hungary missed a deadline to pay 200 million euros ($221 million) in fines imposed in June for “breaching” EU refugee regulations.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also ordered Budapest to pay 1 million euros ($1.10 million) daily until it complies with EU laws guaranteeing refugees the right to asylum inside Hungarian borders.

MAJOR JUDGEMENT

In a significant judgment, the court said Hungary had shown “deliberate evasion” in applying EU policy, which it described as “an unprecedented and exceptionally serious infringement of EU law” and “a significant threat to the unity of EU law and the principle of equality of the member states.”

The fine was higher than sought by the European Commission, but judges identified “aggravating circumstances,” including repeat behavior, that contributed to its severity.

Hungary had been condemned over measures such as controversial “transit zones” where people were held in containers for months, including an Iranian Christian and his young son.

Hungary eventually broke up the container camps but introduced a new policy forcing migrants fleeing war, persecution, and poverty to apply for asylum at certain Hungarian embassies.

It also does not allow refugees to await their appeals against a rejection of asylum inside the country.

As a result, almost no one can claim asylum in Hungary: authorities received just 30 applications in 2023, according to official EU days.

In comparison, Cyprus, with a population ten times smaller, received 12,000 applications that year, according to the EU Agency for Asylum.

BORDER FENCE

Hungary also built a massive border fence along its southern border with Serbia in a move praised by Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, a close political ally and friend of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

After Orbán wrote on social media platform X, “Let Hungary and others have an opt-out of the common migration policy.”

However, with fines over his policies now hundreds of millions of euros, Daniel Freund, a German Green legislator in the European Parliament, called Orbán “the most expensive prime minister in Hungarian history.”

It was unlikely that Orbán was fearful of these words, with Germany and Belgium among countries looking into measures to halt the expected arrival of more illegal migrants from Hungary.

And back in Germany, at least some politicians support Orbán’s views on migration after deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers stoked concerns over immigration.

The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen that killed three people in August.

The Alternative for Germany, or ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ (AfD), earlier this month became the first far-right party since World War Two to win a state election in Thuringia after campaigning heavily on the issue of migration.

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