The European Union has no choice but to provide for the protection of its external borders, and to this end to require its Member States to take every necessary action, the Government Spokesperson said on Saturday evening on the current affairs news programme of the public service television channel M1.

According to Zoltán Kovács, “we have never claimed that the fence, the southern security border fence is a solution”, but it is a means in the hands of the Hungarian Government which prevents free transit via the green border and seeks to render the crossing of the border controllable.

We must put an end to what is happening in the context of the refugees flooding into Europe via the Western Balkans route, and our best chance to achieve this is by stopping the flood of illegal migrants at the very first point of entry, at the Greek border, he said, adding: this requires joint European action.

Mr Kovács said that reports in the foreign media claiming that Hungary has opened the Croatian border section to migrants are untrue.

“We insist on securing the Schengen borders in order to prevent uncontrolled and unidentified people from flooding into the EU without any kind of organisation or order where they present an uncontrollable problem as it is”, he said.

The Government Spokesperson repeated his former statement that Croatia let Hungary and the EU down, as Croatia does not concern itself with any of its obligations arising from its EU membership and allows the migrants heading for the Schengen borders to freely cross its territory.

“The Slovenian border and the events which will take place in Slovenia will be the next test”, he remarked.

György Bakondi, Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister on internal security informed the press that 4,151 migrants had arrived in Hungary via the Hungarian-Croatian border by six o’clock on Saturday evening; 1,836 of them in Baranya County, 1,842 in Somogy County and 473 in Zala County.

Migrants have been arriving ever since; the authorities are expecting the arrival of 9 buses in Beremend and 9 more in Letenye. Their passengers will be transported by bus to the railway bordering crossing stations, and from there they will travel to the registration points by rail, he remarked.

The Chief Advisor said that they have learnt from Croatian press statements that there are some 20,000 migrants in Croatia, and „there are significant masses of people moving in Macedonian-Serbian territories as well. We must therefore reckon with the fact that this pressure will continue to impose an ongoing burden on Hungary”.

Mr Bakondi said regarding the technical border fence planned for the Hungarian-Croatian border section: the defence forces are working on the construction of the fence, and they are making every effort to organise the safe guarding of the green border at the most important sections within the shortest possible time.

The closure of the green border prevents larger masses of migrants from turning up in the most unexpected places, with a view to the security of the Hungarian population, he said. Mr Bakondi added that the existence of the technical border fence and legal protection is the pre-condition of any further restriction on border controls.

(Prime Minister's Office/MTI)