At a press conference on Thursday, September 22, Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, declared that the Hungarian government is prepared to give migrants and asylum seekers attempting to enter the European Union a free one-way ticket to Brussels. Now, he returned with new threats against the European Commission.
Gulyás told journalists today that Hungary plans to sue the European Commission to reimburse the costs of protecting the European Union’s external border.
“We are ready to sue the European Commission after it reimbursed partially or in full the costs incurred by other member states protecting the Schengen border,” Gergely Gulyás said.
Budapest states that the cost amounts to 2 billion euros. Prime Minister Orbán’s chief of staff said that the Hungarian government closed down a major transit route through Hungary in 2015 for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty. This move bolstered his support at home but earned him widespread criticism from many EU member states.
“Hungary has spent two billion euros on protecting the Schengen border in the past years without getting any meaningful contribution whatsoever from the EU.”
