The government spokesperson described the idea of common EU border protection and a European immigration agency as an unacceptable initiative.

According to Zoltán Kovács, there can be no statehood without state borders, and therefore the centralisation of border protection would infringe the sovereignty of Member States.

The EU’s leadership likewise cannot claim the right to decide on the acceptance of refugees, he added.

With initiatives such as this, he said, the Brussels bureaucracy keeps proposing mandatory and permanent mechanisms for the acceptance of migrants again and again, while these would clearly not be required if the EU were able to control its external borders.

In the past three years Hungary has spent one billion euros on border protection and has thereby fulfilled its obligations, while Germany and the Scandinavian countries are now eager to rid themselves of the more than two million immigrants who have arrived in Europe illegally in the past three years, Mr Kovács said.

Referring to the procedure under Article Seven, the government spokesperson pointed out that as regards infringements Hungary’s position is not any worse than that of other European countries.

The Sargentini report which has given rise to the procedure mostly raises objections to closed cases which have been duly settled in a legal sense. Hungary has therefore nothing to worry about, and will prove its case the way it has done several times in the past few years, he added.

According to Mr Kovács, it is typical of Brussels institutions that they fail to comply even with the rules which apply to themselves as the procedure followed during the vote on the report condemning Hungary – in which abstention votes were disregarded – was contrary to the Treaties of the EU.

Regarding Brexit, the government spokesperson said the V4 are taking joint action in the interest of the rights of their citizens working in the United Kingdom. He added that the European position on Britain’s exit, too, is united as they would like an agreement that is beneficial for all parties; however, still no compromise has been reached.

(MTI)