Belgium is reacting to Hungary’s announcement that migrants will in future be transported to Brussels by bus. The plan of the government in Budapest is “unacceptable”, says the Belgian State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor.
On Friday, Hungarian Deputy Interior Minister Bence Retvari presented several buses from the public bus company Volanbusz with the sign “Röszke – Brussels” to the media. Röszke is a town at a border crossing to Serbia where migrants enter the country.
The buses have been assigned the task of relaying any migrants from Hungary to the EU capital Brussels.
The action is the Hungarian government’s response to the record €200 million fine that the EU court imposed on the country that does not want to fill up the country with Muslim migrants.
– Brussels is abusing its power. They want to move migrants to Hungary by force. This is unacceptable. They want to use force to turn Hungary into a migrant country,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on Facebook in June.
Hungary threatens EU to give migrants a one-way ticket to Brussels
The government in Budapest described the fine as “completely unfair” and announced that it would not pay the amount. If Hungary actually refuses to pay, the European Commission could withhold certain subsidies, writes Die Welt.
Retvari says the EU wanted to “force Hungary to let the illegal immigrants we stop at its southern border into the country”. He continued:
“Well, after following the European procedural rules, we will offer them a free trip to Brussels.
– If Brussels wants them, they will get them.
Commenting on the announcement from Hungary, Belgian State Secretary for Asylum, de Moor, said that “boldness of this kind” was “harmful and counterproductive”. They undermine “the solidarity and co-operation of the EU” and are a “flagrant violation of European and international agreements”.
Hungary also announced such an action in August. At the time, the European Commission said it was used to “loud announcements of this kind from Hungary”.
