Hungary takes the blame amidst migrant emergency

A left-wing columnist contends that Hungary should do more to care for migrants trapped in Budapest. Right-wing commentators, on the other hand, find it absurd that Hungary is called on to stop migrants from proceeding to western Europe but at the same time is criticised for erecting a fence in an effort to stop migrants.

The government’s migration policy has utterly failed, Emese Szabó writes in Népszabadság. The left-wing columnist thinks that the government failed to stop migrants at the frontiers and now it cannot properly take care of them (see BudaPost September 2). Instead of doing something with the ever increasing crowd of migrants in Budapest, the government continues its anti-immigrant rhetoric suggesting that undocumented migrants pose health and security threats, Szabó fulminates. As a result of what she calls the government’s ignorance, many Hungarians who cannot get on overcrowded and fully booked trains also suffer.

In a report from Keleti railway station, Mandiner’s Bence Pintér contends that the Hungarian authorities have no clue what to do with migrants. Pintér thinks that neither Hungarian authorities, nor churches, nor international humanitarian organizations are helping to provide temporary shelter for thousands of migrants stuck in Budapest, and so both migrants and the inhabitants of Budapest suffer.

In Heti Válasz, Bálint Ablonczy finds it absurd that Hungary is blamed for the migrant crisis. The conservative pundit dismisses accusations that the Hungarian government overlooks the plight of migrants in Budapest. Undocumented migrants who enter the Schengen zone are being registered and held up in Budapest not because this is in the interest of the Hungarian government, but because this is required by EU law, Ablonczy stresses. In conclusion, he thinks that the Hungarian government could have shown more cooperation and accept a couple of dozen migrants within the EU migrant quota system (see BudaPost June 27) and thus have pre-empted harsh EU criticism. Nonetheless, Ablonczy finds it unfair to threaten Hungary with a suspension of free movement within the EU or cutting the country’s EU funds.

It is absurd and complacent that while Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann criticizes Hungary for erecting a fence on its southern border, Austria de facto reintroduces border checks, Tamás Lánczi contends in Mozgástér blog. The pro-government analyst wonders how Hungary could stop the flow of migrants towards Austria and Germany unless it erects fences at the frontier and holds back those undocumented migrants who get through the southern fence.

Tags: EU, immigration