European interior ministers in Hungary to discuss migration

Budapest, Nov. 27, (dpa/GNA) – Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér is hosting his counterparts from Germany, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland on Monday to discuss efforts to combat people smuggling operations and irregular migration.

Many of the governments have temporarily established static and mobile checkpoints along their borders to prevent people-smugglers from bringing migrants to Central and Western Europe via routes through the Balkans.

Those borders within the Schengen Area typically have no passport or document checks.

Monday’s talks are to take place in the southern Hungarian town of Szeged, near a border fence that Hungary erected along its frontier with Serbia in 2015.

The presence of German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser comes as Europe’s biggest economy marks its highest annual number of unauthorized migrant arrivals since the migration crisis of 2015.

In October, Faeser announced plans to reintroduce fixed border checks at Germany’s borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

The sharp rise in asylum seekers overwhelmed migration centres in the first half of 2023 and prompted months of dispute between officials over the distribution of costs.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in October during an interview with Der Spiegel magazine, “We must finally deport on a grand scale those who have no right to stay in Germany.”

According to Scholz, “a whole bundle of measures” are needed to limit irregular migration, including better protection of the European Union’s external borders.

GNA

Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).