Effective action can only be taken against illegal migration within the framework of international cooperation, the national police chief stressed on Friday in Budapest.

Károly Papp said in his speech opening the 38th Capital Policing Europe Conference that in addition to acts of terrorism, „the extreme flow of illegal migration” has been Europe’s other main challenge since 2015.

Illegal migration has been an enormous task for and has at the same time imposed a great burden on the Hungarian police force as well, but as a result of the measures adopted by the Government in Hungary and Budapest, „public security is balanced and free from extremes, and no public security deficit of any kind has evolved in the country”, he said.

Mr Papp said thanks to the countries neighbouring Hungary, as well as to the Visegrád countries and Germany, for their cooperation in taking effective action against migration. The sharing of data and information, and the joint analytic and evaluation efforts have yielded the required professional achievements, the chief police commissioner stated.

He pointed out: the Hungarian police have directed and continue to direct units to Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Greece as part of their border policing responsibilities not only under the auspices of Frontex, but also on the basis of bilateral agreements.

Mr Papp said that Hungary has a 1,100-kilometre-long external Schengen land border, and last year approximately 400,000 illegal migrants arrived in Hungary, and as a result, in the territory of the European Union (EU).

The Government introduced more stringent legal, policing and technical measures in 2015 „in the interest of the guarding and protection of the EU’s external borders as laid down in the Schengen Borders Code”.

Thanks to the measures that have been implemented, the number of illegal migrants has decreased significantly this year, compared with last year, but it is still several times the volume of illegal migration experienced at the beginning of the 2010s, the chief police commissioner observed.

As he said, in consequence of the measures and developments, the Hungarian police, in cooperation with the defence forces, „are able to protect the Schengen external borders to high professional standards”. He also remarked that they have further increased the staff of units responsible for the investigation of people smuggling groups.

Mr Papp said in his opening speech that the challenges that have emerged in recent years in the countries of Europe „have, in a great many cases, negatively affected citizens’ subjective sense of public security”.

The general threat of terrorism has moved to a higher level in the past year or so. The acts of terrorism which occurred in various cities around Europe have posed a major challenge to the countries concerned and their law enforcement agencies.

These acts of terrorism have clearly shown that the law enforcement agencies and secret services must maintain more effective cooperation in the areas of prevention and the exchange of information, while international cooperation, too, must be further broadened, Mr Papp stressed.

In his words, as crime knows no borders, neither can the investigation of crime. He described the maintenance of an ongoing dialogue between the police forces of the different countries and metropolitan police chiefs as particularly important.

According to the information published on the website of the police, the international event is attended by the police chiefs of the capitals of 30 European countries and two countries outside Europe where they share forward-looking practices which ensure an international exchange of experiences. Budapest is hosting the professional meeting which has been organised annually since 1979 for the first time. The Budapest Metropolitan Police are hosting the conference between 9 and 11 September 2016.

The event is traditionally attended by the police chiefs of European capitals and senior leaders of other agencies involved in law enforcement. The main topic of the conference is the introduction of primary policing and investigative measures to be adopted in emergency situations, and in addition to the police chief of Budapest, lectures will also be delivered by the delegations of Belgium, Estonia, France, Iceland, Poland, Russia, the United Kingdom and Spain.

At the conference the heads of the Brussels, Paris and Madrid police delegations will introduce in their lectures related to the management of earlier and more recent emergencies the public security and investigative measures they implemented and their impact, the website police.hu reads.

(MTI)