Hungary’s prime minister is planning to submit six proposals on handling the migrant crisis at the European Council extraordinary meeting in Brussels this evening.
After attending a meeting of the legislative committee of the conservative CSU in Bavaria today, Viktor Orbán told journalists he would propose that Greece should hand over the duties of protecting its borders to European countries willing to participate in such a scheme. Orbán will also propose separating refugees and economic migrants before they enter the Schengen area and for the EU to draw up a list of countries considered safe to live in.
Under the fourth proposal, every member state should increase contribution to the EU by 1% and cut spending by 1%, resulting in 3 billion euros to be spent on refugees. He will also propose developing a partnership with states whose involvement in handling the migrant crisis is unavoidable, such as Turkey and Russia. Finally, Orbán said global quotas should be introduced and all countries in the world should be involved in managing the migrant crisis.
Nearly 250,000 migrants have come to Hungary this year, 70,000 this month alone - and it has become a transit state on the Western Balkan route to Germany and other EU destinations. Since the erection of the fence and tougher regulatory measures in force since mid-Septbember some 35,000 crossed over from Croatia recently, including 4,500 between midnight and 6 a.m. Wednesday.
Croatia is taking migrants to the border with Hungary, which then takes them by train and bus to the Austrian border, from where they continue their journey west. Hungarian immigration officials said that since Friday not a single migrant entering from Croatia had requested asylum in Hungary.
