Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban blamed Greece for the refugee crisis in his country and said that the EU needs to deploy forces to Greece’s borders.
“If Greece is not capable of protecting its borders, we need to mobilize European forces to the Greek borders so that they can achieve the goals of European law instead of the Greek authorities. That is one of the foremost goals,” Orban said after a meeting with Manfred Weber, the chairman of the conservative European People’s Party in the EU Parliament on Friday.
Orban did not elaborate on how exactly such a plan will turn into real life, but he proved that he has probably never heard of FRONTEX, the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union.
Hungary was, of course, among the four countries, next to Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, that resist the plan of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker for Resettlement quotas of refugees from Greece, Italy and Hungary.
With Hungary’s inhuman treatment of refugees, Orban has been in the middle of criticism by his EU-partners and the international media. Last week Orban forbade refugees to use trains and sent thousands of people to Austria on foot.
Orban has claimed that Hungary is facing a “rebellion by migrants” and announced on Friday, that border-crossers will be “immediately arrested” starting next week once stricter immigration laws take effect. He also accused migrants of “rebelling” against Hungarian authorities.
Video: Fed ‘like animals in pen’: Refugees thrown food in Roszke camp, Hungary
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A link → FRONTEX just in case Orban’s press team reads this post.
Interesting Read: How Hungary’s Prime Minister Turned From Young Liberal Into Refugee-Bashing Autocrat
PS Totalitarianism-addicted ex Communists who failed the Enlightenment test at school.
Cause and effect. The migrant situation was caused by NATO bombing of Libya a few years back. This has intensified with the USA/UK and Israeli arming of the islamic State as it ravages Syria. Ordinary people with families and babies have to flee for their lives – its that simple.
That is the cause and when that is fixed the ‘migrant problem’ will disappear. If we focus on ‘effect’ i.e. what Orban would like to see happen on Greece’s border, we end up chsing our tails. Orban in any case is a student of Soros and Soros is a well known funder of ‘colour revolutions’ in Europe and beyond.
Once again, its the ordinary peoples of these countries who get caught up in the crossfire of politicians and other groups as they fight for regional power.
Ellis
@Ellis I would agree with you about Libya, but little else. The 2011 death of the Libyan dictator Gaddafi and his dictatorship also meant breakdown of law and order in the country. That, in turn, meant that the African migrants could use Libya as a springboard to Italy and the rest of the EU.
However, the current crisis for the most part is not about migrants coming from Libya or even through Libya. According to U.N. data published by The Guardian, 50% of the immigrants are Syrians and 13% – Afghans. I disagree that the recent US, UK and Israeli policies are to blame for the crises in these countries. If anything, Obama could be blamed for being too tentative in Syria. In part this is justified by the lack of “good guys” with credible military capabilities in that conflict, and in part — by the lack of appetite (particularly among the U.S. left) for another military adventure in the Middle East. That created unhappiness and an opening for regional powers to intervene (from Turks, Saudis and Qataris on one side to Iranians and now Russians on the other). You can blame these countries for the refugee crisis (with Turkey also bearing the brunt of it so far).
As for claims that U.S. is arming IS (or even has created it) — I see that as nothing more than Assad’s and Putin’s propaganda intended to justify any atrocities against the majority Sunni population and clinging to power at any cost.
Nato has its share of guilt in this, but they are not alone by far. We have assad using chemical weapons, the nato bombing IS, turkey bombing the kurds who are fighting IS and placing bombs in turkey, you have arab gulf states financing IS, russia sending weapons(and now possibly ground troops) and iran and hezbollah also have a finger in the pie, not to mention one of the worst abominations this world has seen in the last few years the IS guys themselves. By this time its a big freeforall. Like I said nato and the west certainly play their part, but its to easy to say responsiblity lies soley at their feet.
KGT,
Get better informed. I was reading the hungarian newspapers, and Orban did what he should have legally done: try to register the refugees before they leave Hungary. This is what Greece should also do. Greece is breaching its international obligations. If you want open borders, leave your home without a lock and you see what happens. Europe of Merckel is a home without a lock.
Rita
And how many refugees these Hunns rescue out of their sea? Get a map and check out how many islands in the East Aegean are, lots of these islands get patrolled by seek & rescue operations of the Greek coastguard in cooperation with Turkish. Following your “argumentation” the problem would be solved if they register the refugees instead of rescue them first, means let them drown. Where do you think they all come from as Greece rescues about one thousand daily? Out of the water, their hands are just too wet to take prints and instead of waiting hours until they are printable the boats get out again; not to forget that lots of them were registered anyway.
Is that correct? I have not followed these developments enough, but I assumed that the Greek government is registering (including fingerprinting) the refugees first. Otherwise, transporting them and otherwise assisting them to move North would be not just a violation of the Schengen agreement, but also Greek laws (essentially, making it a people-smuggling operation).
“violation of the Schengen agreement”??? Ask Germany, Austria & Slovakia lol
I would not go that far (yet) as to state that the actions of Germany (or for that matter Austria and Slovakia) are violating the Schengen agreement. It allows re-instating internal border controls for 10 days, if this is necessary for “public policy or national security” reasons. If the problem continues, the controls can be maintained for “renewable periods” of up to 20 days and for a maximum of two months.
If Germany keeps their border closed longer than that I would be the first to blame them for talking the talk but not walking the walk. So far, though, they have been open to receiving refugees on a large scale — more so than most EU countries. Receiving 13,000 refugees in a day (and I mean receiving them rather than just transferring them to a neighboring country) is a logistical challenge, and I would give them the benefit of the doubt before calling them Schengen violators.
the border controls now instigated can be in place for quite some time(though not indefinetly) without violating the schengen agreement. I see 2 main reasons both of which i have no problems with for the moment. nr.1 is to get order into things, noone is speaking of turning anyone down but there needs to be a registration process and ultimatly people cant just go wherever they want. just because many people have heard of hamburg and not so many of bielefeld doesnt mean there is enough space for everyone to go to hamburg.
2nd reason for this is to put pressure on the eastern european and other countries that so far have refused any solidarity before the negotitions that are due today.
“Assisting” would mean as a minimum of assistance to bring them from Kos via Lesbos to Salonika or Kavalla and not bring them back and far away from the border to Pirea that makes their trail of tears 750 kilometres longer.
a violation of the dublin rules, not schengen.
dublin is the agreement that refugees are to stay in that countrywithin the eu that they first arrive in(aka the one they first get registered). that plan has been de facto not working for quite some time plus it got officially suspended by ger regarding syrian refugees 2 weeks ago.
DEAR VICTOR ORBAN …. such a sweet boy.
We all love lists – well here is a good one.
In an candid interview General Wesley Clark told the world. that
as earily as 2002 – just after 9/11 – the United States of America had decided to make war on 7 countries within 5 years.
The reason being ‘THAT THEY WANTED TO & THEREFORE THEY COULD’
These are the countries listed below
*
THE GENERAL WESLEY CLARK LIST
IRAQ
SYRIA
LEBANON
LIBYA
SAMALIA
SUDAN
IRAN
The refugees we see today are as a result of the wars that the United States of America have deliberately inflicted on these countries “JUST FOR FUN
Did the United States of America think about the result of their warring games – NO – not realy
Did the United States of America CARE WHAT DAMAGE THEY MAY CAUSE TO THE WORLD AT LARGE … NO NOT REALLY.
*Now this is the big question ….
DID ANYONE IN EUROPE RAISE ANY OBJECTIONS TO THE INVASION & BOMBING OF IRAQ …. NO
question number 2 …. SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM NOW …
Answer -> OH WELL … WE DIDN’T KNOW IT WOULD BE EUROPE THAT HAD TO CLEAN UP AFTER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CRAPPED ALL OVER THE MIDDLE EAST & NTH AFRICA
Viktor please learn some decent European language and stop speaking your Mongolian dialect of Attila the refugee maker
“Viktor please learn some decent European language and stop speaking your Mongolian dialect of Attila the refugee maker.”
Do I detect a hint of racism from your statement?
Finno-ugric has always existed to the north of indo-european. You do the math.
Sure, just like calling Orban a racist pig makes me an animal hater
What a strange concept of refugee, Merkel. African people does not fit your definition? Just well educated Syrians, for wich Germany has paied nothing? I would rather say your pupose is social dumping in Germany.
Syrians dont even make up half of the refugees arriving here and the only one who routenily get turned away are migrants from the balkans.
with your perspective there is no right way. closed borders is bad but the instant you open them youre somehow racists because you put an emphasis on how the situation for syrians is especially bleak.
merkel didnt open the border because she wants cheap labor(even though that effect will probably come), she did it because overwhelming public opinion demanded action.
Overwelming public opinion as a reason to justify some decision reminds me the support of Schauble for his positions during the First six months of this year. Sorry for not being able to follow your entusiasm.
If there would exist any serious statistics about this there would have been some brilliant politicians in Greece trying to get votes by announcing a campaign to stay in Greece as you may know that Greece lost many educated people – and until January 2015 another 350.000 were planning to leave and asked for their papers the Greek authorities – and for some people it might be even easier to get their life organized as Syria is not so far away and Christians in Syria are sometimes simply named “Greeks” in Syria.
And how does he intend to do this? All countries between Greece and Hungary are non-EU countries so does he intend to invade them and then invade Greece? Good luck with that.
On KTG’s last statement in the blog post: Last week there was an interesting op-ed in NY Times by a Bulgarian political scientist and commentator titled “Eastern Europe’s Compassion Deficit”. It delves on the reasons for the anti-immigrant attitudes in the EU states of Central and Eastern Europe:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/opinion/eastern-europes-compassion-deficit-refugees-migrants.html?_r=0