“The Government’s Strategic Cabinet has come to a decision on the amendment of the four Acts required to reintroduce the detaining of immigrants; the bill will soon be put before Parliament”, János Lázár said in Makó on Tuesday.

“The presence of immigrants in Hungary represents a security risk, and accordingly the Government has decided that their free movement must be restricted”, the Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office and the region’s Member of Parliament said at a public forum before a crowd of some two hundred.

“In future, people who submit requests must wait at the border for a decision to be made concerning their request. This is currently not the case; migrants are allocated to open camps for the duration of the judicial review or after a period of four weeks has elapsed”, the Minister explained.

“People who are currently present within the territory of Hungary – their numbers are estimated at six-eight hundred– will be transported back to the border in several stages”, he said.

In reply to a question, the Minister told reporters that the closing of the Hungarian-Romanian border was currently not on the agenda, but the required preparations have been made, just as the plans for a possible second border security fence along the Hungarian-Serbian border are also available if required.

Mr. Lázár stressed that tens of millions of people are waiting in Africa and the Middle East to set out for Europe. He declared that we ourselves must assure the security of the country and cannot entrust the defence of the Hungarian border to what happens in Turkey.

With regard to the various development projects going on in the city, the Minister highlighted the expansion of the city’s thermal baths. The municipality has set aside 50 million forints in funding from this year’s budget to support the operation of the baths; 140 million forints were needed in previous years.

“An investment of 6-6.5 billion forints is required to make the Hagymatikum spa profitable”, he said, adding that: “There is a good chance that the city will receive this funding”.

(MTI)