“Negotiations are underway as to why Austria has to all intents and purposes closed the Hegyeshalom border crossing station”, Minister of Prime Minister’s Office János Lázár said in a statement to the press on the migration situation on Saturday morning at Kötcse, the site of the 1989 pan-European picnic.
In the statement, which was aired on Hungarian M1 television’s “Actual Channel” programme, the Minister said that “in view of the fact that they are not receiving clear instructions from the federal government”, the Burgenland police on duty at the Hungarian-Austrian border were unsure about what to do and are therefore keeping the border closed, which has led to a tailback of some 20-30 kilometres at the border crossing point. “The migrants are not disrupting road transport, but Austria is nevertheless closing the border”, he said.
Mr. Lázár said that some 200 immigrants are on the way towards the Austrian border from Vámosszabadi and indicated that the Austrian authorities would have to decide what to do.
In the small hours of Saturday morning, some 4500 migrants, who were on the M1 motorway, walking along main railway line No. 1 and at Budapest’s Keleti railway station were transported to Hegyeshalom by 104 buses. The Hungarian authorities had been given a mandate from the Austrian and Hungarian governments to transport migrants who were endangering their own lives and Hungarian rail and road traffic to Hegyeshalom. The vast majority of buses have already arrived at the Hegyeshalom border crossing station, the Minister noted.
In reply to a question asking for the Minister’s opinion about the fact that Minister of Interior Sándor Pintér had just gone on vacation, Mr. Lázár said the government is in continuous contact with the Minister of Interior.
When asked about the current state of Hungary’s relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office said that it “remains an alliance relationship and is absolutely constructive”. “I think the German government has realised that the statement in which it called on migrants located in Hungary to go to Germany was not accurate”, the Minister said.
Mr. Lázár also stressed that the Hungarian Government will continue to fulfil its obligations according to the Schengen Agreement in future. “If we aren’t Schengen, we too will be left out of it”, he said, emphasising how important it was for the construction of the border security fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border to be completed as rapidly as possible, something the national security cabinet is expected to discuss on Monday.
(MTI)
