Hungary needs more refugee funds
Country struggles to cope with rising tide of migrants
HUNGARY called yesterday for more money from the EU to handle a rising tide of migrants crossing the Balkans, as a new wave hit its southern border and laid bare the cracks in EU policy towards the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
More than 100 000 migrants, many of them refugees from conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, have entered Hungary, which is part of Europe’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel, this year en route to the more affluent countries of western and northern Europe.
The influx ticked up on Monday to its highest daily rate this year – 2 093 – as many race to beat a fence that Hungary is building on its 175km border with Serbia to keep them out.
A Reuters reporter saw hundreds stream unhindered into Hungary from Serbia yesterday, part of a larger movement in recent weeks whisked north by boat and bus as cash-strapped governments in Greece, Macedonia and Serbia try to move them on as fast as they can.
“We have skills, we can survive anywhere,” said 30-year-old Hassan, an IT engineer from Syria, after walking across the border into Hungary. “We don’t just come to Europe to eat and sleep. We’re looking for safety. It’s better to walk across half of Europe than to stay in Syria.”
A record 50 000, many of them Syrians, reached Greek shores by boat from Turkey last month alone. Greece, embroiled in a debilitating economic crisis, is ferrying them from overwhelmed islands to the mainland, from where they head north to Macedonia and points beyond. Macedonia tried to keep them out last week with razor-wire and stun grenades, but gave up in the face of huge and determined crowds.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees said it expected the influx into Macedonia to continue at a rate of 3 000 a day for months. About 8 000 were in Serbia, many spending the night in city parks.
Belgrade’s Lasta bus company said it had increased its daily departures to the northern Serbian town of Subotica near the Hungarian border from seven to 24. “In the coming days we may expect an increase,” the company said.
Hungarian authorities are rolling out a low, barbed-wire barrier along the border with Serbia, while construction crews race to complete a more substantial 3.5mhigh fence.
Critics point out that the vast majority of migrants who enter Hungary do not linger as they are determined to reach the likes of Austria, Germany and Sweden, where they join up with relatives and friends in search of work and security.
But the Hungarian government under right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has taken a harder line than other EU states, saying such an influx carries risks of terrorism, crime and unemployment. He says the EU has failed to offer a coherent solution, and also faces pressure at home from far-right opponents.
Orbán’s chief of staff, Janos Lazar, said Hungary should be given more money by the EU. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, has pledged nearly € 8 million (R119.5m) in new aid and various other measures. But Lazar said it wasn’t enough.
A European Commission spokeswoman said Hungary’s share of a seven-year EU budget to 2020 for asylum, migration and policing was more than € 85m, and Budapest’s request for € 8m more this year was being fast-tracked.