Border controls will be abolished on the 344-kilometre-long border between Hungary and Croatia from 1 January, following the approval of Croatia's accession to the Schengen area by the Council of Interior Ministers of the EU Member States, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior said in Brussels on Thursday.
Speaking to Hungarian journalists after the ministerial meeting, Bence Rétvári stressed that Croatia's accession to Schengen would boost transport between the two countries and facilitate tourism. The fact that the Hungarian-Croatian border will become interoperable also means that the work of the police officers who have been on duty there so far - involved in border surveillance - can be used to protect other border sections or to safeguard the country's security, he said.
Concerning the details of the Council meeting, he said that Romania and Bulgaria were very close to becoming part of the Schengen area, with only two votes missing for the two countries.
It must be acknowledged that the two countries have been waiting on the doorstep of the Schengen area for eleven years. Bence Rétvári said that after eleven years, it is not possible to impose new conditions or to take into account political criteria unrelated to accession in order to accept Schengen membership.
He stated that Hungary has always actively supported the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria, as well as Croatia. Hungary wants these two countries to be part of the free movement area within the EU as soon as possible. In addition to strengthening economic relations, their accession would help to reinforce the protection of the EU's external borders, which would play a significant role in deterring illegal migration. It would also be important for Hungary in terms of national policy, as it would make it easier for Hungarians living on both sides of the Hungarian-Romanian border to cross the border, he stressed.
In the context of the debate on migration, Bence Rétvári said: Hungary continues to reject - and will not support in the future - any proposal that would distribute migrants among member states on the basis of quotas. He said that when the capacities of other Member States are also being exhausted in terms of migration, then we should not work on stimulating migration, not on opening borders, not on distributing migrants according to quotas, but on stopping migration. In this respect, Italy has become an ally of the Visegrad countries, as Rome has made it clear that illegal migration can be stopped not only on land but also at sea, the Parliamentary State Secretary of the Interior Ministry added.
(Source: MTI)
