Hungary’s strong conviction expressed in 2015, when the first wave of migrants reached Europe, has become a generally accepted approach in Europe, the Hungarian foreign minister told Hungary’s public broadcaster. EU foreign ministers meeting in Zagreb adopted a statement which says the bloc’s external borders must be protected and the EU should ensure Greece of its full solidarity, adding that member states will not tolerate any illegal border crossing attempts, the Hungarian foreign minister said, the V4 news agency reported.

We literally said the same thing in 2015, when we were compared to the dictatorships of the darkest period of the 20th century. Today the European Union is practically saying the same thing, so it’s become a mainstream European approach, Peter Szijjarto noted.

He said that the EU has decided to provide immediate assistance to Greece, also backed by Hungary. Hungary is in favour of the view that Turkey should continue to be receiving funding from the EU, Szijjarto said, adding however that Hungary has received no support from the EU since it built a border fence and deployed hundreds, or thousands of policemen and troops to protect the frontier at a cost that now far exceeds 1 billion euros”.

So there is a kind of double standard; this is absolutely clear,” he said. What matters to us is not the opinion of Brussels, but how we can protect the Hungarian people and Hungary, Szijjarto added.

Hungary has done just that for the past five years: by erecting and maintaining a fence and deploying troops and police officers to the border, it has managed to prevent any illegal immigrants from entering Hungary. Peter Szijjarto underlined: “One thing is for sure: regardless of whether or not we’ll receive any money, we will protect our borders”.