A total of fifty Czech police officers arrived in Budapest in Monday; the contingent will be involved in protecting Hungary’s southern border within the framework of Visegrád Group (V4 – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) border security cooperation.
At the ceremonial welcoming of the officers, Minister of State for Law Enforcement László Tasnádi said: “The countries of the Visegrád Group were the first to react to the global challenge and the problem caused by migration”.
“The Hungarian Government had decided in time that it would do everything possible to protect the stretch of the border it is responsible for, but this can only be achieved through joint action”, he added. “And accordingly your help is not only of a practical nature, but also of a symbolic one”, he stressed.
The Minister of State pointed out that according to the Schengen regulations nobody whose identity and intentions are unknown may cross the border. He also spoke about the fact that although the police officers can only protect the southern stretch of the border, the problem still effects the whole world and so it must be solved in its countries of origin. “It cannot be solved through distributing quotas or bargaining with Turkey”, he added.
Police from the Czech Republic had already provided assistance to Hungarian border guards with relation to the migration crisis between mid-October and mid-December last year to help protect the Schengen border. During the summer, the Cabinet asked Prague to send another contingent of Czech police. So far, the Czech Republic has provided similar assistance to Greece, Slovakia and Macedonia.
(Ministry of Interior)
