On Friday at a press conference held in front of the Capital’s Keleti railway station, György Bakondi, Chief Security Advisor to the Prime Minister said that Hungary is open to offering all possible help with relation to genuine refugees.
György Bakondi stressed that this means people who do not pose a threat and who can be allowed to enter the country following suitable checks.
500 people last year and 300 people so far this year have received political asylum in Hungary, he said.
“A year ago a huge and aggressive crowd that posed a major threat to public safety was camped at the Keleti Station; this was why the Hungarian Government was forced to act to ensure the safety of the European people”, he stated.
Mr. Bakondi pointed out that some three hundred Europeans had lost their lives during the past year as a result of acts of terrorism, adding that the perpetrators “have set up a well-organised network that is preparing to carry out terrorist attacks and operates in deep conspiracy”.
He reminded the press that hundreds of thousands of people whose identity and goals were “undetermined” had entered Hungarian territory via Serbia prior to the border being closed, pointing out that “this was the period when everyone claimed to by Syrian, because the invitation was primarily aimed as Syrians”.
The Chief Advisor also mentioned that it has been a year since the attack at the Röszke border crossing station when the fence was breached, but “the exemplary, disciplined and lawful actions of the police” prevented a gate from opening “through which hundreds and thousands more people could enter Europe”.
“Today, Hungary is facing yet another danger: the compulsory resettlement quota”, Mr. Bakondi said, adding that “we are now not just talking about letting people into the country who are distributed by the EU with no upper limit, but also about plans to make family reunification easier and admitting economic migrants”, adding that “The citizens of Hungary will be the first to have the chance to form a standpoint against this at the referendum on 2 October”.
At the event, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács highlighted the fact that it has been a year since the Government came to a decision on mass migration and to put an end to the unacceptable state of affairs that had arisen in the country.
“We closed the green border and constructed the temporary border security fence”, he reminded the press, indicating that the Government had also ordered heightened patrolling by police and later the army, and decided to impose legal sanctions to make crossing the fence a crime.
“While charity organisations were doing their job here on site helped by well-meaning people and NGOs, we should also not forget that some supposed members of civil society attempted to deepen the crisis with specifically political intentions, as well as attempting to discredit the Hungarian Government for the measures it introduced to put an end to illegal migration”, he said.
Mr. Kovács stressed: These measures were to only important for protecting Europe and ourselves, but “were also significant from a much more direct and important security policy perspective”, because we now know how terrorists used the area around the Keleti Station, for instance, to enable the perpetrators of future terrorist attacks to reach their targets.
(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)
