EU in panic over irregular migration, hindering free movement: Hungary

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has said that Western leaders are in a panic about illegal migration.

Tuesday's remarks came after a meeting in Komarno, Slovakia, where Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico outlined a stricter migration policy they'd like to see adopted by the EU.

"Panic-driven decisions, like suspending Schengen and reinstating border checks, undermine the EU’s greatest achievement which is free movement across borders," said Orban.

"It was predictable that crime would increase and the migration pact would not solve the problem but make things worse. This pact is the problem itself."

Illegal migration remains a key political problem across Europe nearly a decade after the crisis in 2015, when around 1 million people arrived in the bloc.

Orban proposed setting up EU-funded and operated “hotspots” in North Africa and other locations for holding asylum-seekers until their applications for international protection are approved.

For his part, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he would not accept, under any conditions, that Serbia would become a hot spot for irregular refugees.

"It doesn't occur to me and I wouldn't accept it under any conditions. There is no trick, no game and no story. My friends didn't ask that, they didn't ask for it, and no one else can ask me that, because it did not occur to me to talk about it at all," said Vucic.

Italy formally opened two migrant reception centres in Albania, where it plans to process up to 3,000 asylum seekers and refugees each month outside its territory.

The agreement was signed between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama in 2023.​​​​​​​

'New migration pact'

Slovakian leader Fico has proposed that the EU erect physical barriers on its external borders — something Hungary did unilaterally in 2015 after hundreds of thousands of people, mostly fleeing war and instability in Syria and Iraq, entered the EU in a matter of months.

Fico also criticised the EU's recent immigration reforms, saying the bloc needs to pass “a new migration pact which takes into account what the laws have not yet allowed” such as deportations.

In a joint statement adopted during their meeting, the three leaders agreed that illegal migration “is a serious problem, fueled by geopolitical instability, growing conflicts and social inequalities in Europe’s immediate neighbourhood.”

However, according to Frontex, the EU's border agency, the number of irregular border crossings into the bloc fell by 42 percent in the first nine months of 2024, and by 79 percent along the Western Balkan route, which includes Serbia and Hungary.