Hungary's Border Protection System Held Firm, Migrants Didn't Break Through

“It was a tense moment,” Gyorgy Bakondi told Magyar Nemzet, recalling the incident that took place at the Roszke border crossing ten years ago. The chief homeland security advisor to the Hungarian Prime Minister emphasized that Hungary’s border protection system held firm and that Hungary stands as an example to many countries.

What processes led to the riot, widely known as the Battle of Roszke?

In 2015, an influx of illegal migrants began toward Europe on a scale never before seen. Four hundred thousand people arrived in Hungary, of whom 386,000 filed asylum applications, but almost none of them stayed to wait for the processing of their claims, but left our country before a decision. Every Hungarian citizen can recall the conditions at Keleti railway station, and the sight of migrants marching down the highway. It soon became clear that this was not the usual border violation, but rather a massive migration flow that was organized, guided, and financed. Already then it was evident that human smuggling gangs linked to organized crime were behind it. At the same time, the so-called Soros Plan emerged, and George Soros’s NGOs showed significant activity along the entire Balkan route.

Gyorgy Bakondi, the Prime Minister’s chief homeland security advisor (Photo: Attila Polyak)

How do you remember the riot?

I was there on the spot and saw how a group of raging migrants, throwing objects, young men behaving aggressively, attacked Hungarian police officers, who showed exemplary steadfastness. The migrants did not succeed in breaking through—the border protection system held firm. This was a very important, tense moment, since it led to open confrontation.

But in line with the will expressed by the Hungarian people, we successfully applied a security measure that today stands as an example for many European countries.

What options did the government have?

We had two choices: stop the migrants, or let them pass through, since they did not see Hungary as their destination country. The government’s first decision was to ask the Hungarian people’s opinion in a national consultation survey. The overwhelming majority of Hungarians, regardless of political leaning, said that the migrants must be stopped. That we must not allow the Hungarian state border, sovereignty, territorial security, or the interests of the Hungarian people to be disregarded.

After that, professional questions arose: how to stop the migrants? We saw what was happening on the North Macedonian, Greek, and Serbian borders. Aggressive individuals, often armed, without documents and with unknown identities, ignoring legal requirements and lying about the real purpose of their journey. It was clear that they could not be stopped without a system of physical barriers. Alongside that, police and later military forces were deployed to guard the fence.

But it was also clear that the fence alone was not enough. A legal border barrier was needed so that when migrants crossed into Hungary by digging, with ladders, or by cutting through the fence, they could not claim to be refugees.

According to UN regulations, a refugee is someone persecuted in their country for racial, religious, or political reasons, and who must seek asylum in the first safe country they enter. But in the case of these migrants, there was no talk of a first safe country. So we came up with the solution of returning them to the other side of the fence. At that time, we set up transit zones directly at the border, where migrants were placed until their asylum applications were processed. But under pressure from the European Union, these had to be dismantled. Today the solution is that anyone who wishes to enter Hungary's territory must submit their asylum application at a Hungarian diplomatic mission located in a neighboring non-EU country. If they are granted refugee status, they may then enter Hungary legally at a border crossing point.

How does the handling of illegal migration affect our relationship with the European Union?

The European Union is trying by every possible means to force Hungary to let migrants in and process their asylum applications on Hungarian territory. Since we refuse to do so, we face political criticism and pressure. Now they are even penalizing us with fines. Recently, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, visited the Poland-Belarus border and inaugurated a huge steel fence built with EU funding. She stated that everything will be done to guard the EU's external border and more funds will be allocated to this purpose. In the meantime, she forgot that Hungary is being fined precisely because it guards the EU’s external border, thereby also protecting other European countries.

That is why the Hungarian Prime Minister wrote to the European Commission President asking her not to apply double standards and to contribute to financing the border barrier, which until now has been built and operated entirely from Hungary's budget without EU funding.

Today, everyone knows that Hungarians were not just right, but are right. We want Brussels to reconsider the use of double standards, political pressure, and to review the strange ideas that characterize the EU’s migration policy.

What is the situation in those countries that opened their borders to illegal migration?

Public safety in these countries has deteriorated significantly. Stabbings, robberies, and other criminal offenses have become regular occurrences. Western European countries let in migrants who received more benefits from the social welfare systems than the citizens of those countries themselves. Through family reunification, millions more arrived on the continent. Deportations, however, are not carried out, because the authorities must accept what migrants claim regarding who they are and where they came from. At the same time, there is a large group that does not receive asylum benefits and generally adopts a criminal lifestyle. Migrants have also brought with them tribal, religious, and racial conflicts that Europeans often do not even understand.

Antisemitism has reemerged across Western Europe, exerting a strong political impact. 

Many Western European countries have shifted their positions on the Gaza question compared to their earlier clear support for Israel against terrorist groups. These tensions are causing serious unrest among the population. As a result, people have started voting for patriotic forces that take a strict stance on migration. All this has also exposed deeper problems with basic democratic systems in some Western countries, where the most popular parties are not even allowed to stand in elections.

Photo: Attila Polyak

What is the European Union’s response to the migration crisis?

The European Union is in a grave and dangerous situation that's difficult to manage, and its proposed solution is the migration pact. Essentially, the pact says that migrants must be distributed according to quotas among countries where they are not yet present. Hungary does not agree with being forced to build camps for thousands, to house people there, and then to decide who is eligible for asylum status and who must be returned. We refuse to take in migrants, but for every single migrant we refuse, we are obliged to pay a significant sum. We also oppose quota-based distribution because it acts as a pull factor for those who are still only considering setting out toward Europe.

How are other EU member states responding to migration pressure?

Migrants leaving Libya are no longer heading mainly for Italy’s coasts because of the heavy protection in place there. They are now arriving directly on the Greek islands. The Greek parliament has taken decisions that in 2015 would have been unthinkable: suspending the submission and processing of applications from African asylum seekers, placing ankle monitors on migrants, and accommodating them in closed camps. Meanwhile, many countries in the Schengen Zone have reinstated border controls, which carry severe consequences for both the economy and tourism.

The European Union seems more interested in increasing chaos.

There is certainly an ideological and political rationale behind this. Leftist-liberal parties in Europe think in terms of creating a United States of Europe. The President of the European Commission even spoke about this in her annual address.

Our interest lies in the European Union as it was originally created—benefiting from the single market. We believe that the EU is strong when it functions as an alliance of strong member states.

Others, however, think that national frameworks should be dissolved in favor of a United State of Europe. To accomplish this goal, millions of people who do not care about—or are even hostile toward—national identity, sovereignty, history, Christian faith, or Judeo-Christian values are seen as most suitable. Leftist parties believed that granting citizenship more quickly would provide them with a secure voter base. Now, across Europe, the negative consequences of this are becoming apparent. Thus, there is a growing conflict between the efforts of national governments and the interest of the EU bureaucracy. But with the rise of the patriotic movement, we can now also set our sights on reforming the European Union. We will not accept the migration pact, we will not participate in acts of war, and we will protect our children from the advance of LGBTQ ideology. Hungary’s political system and the value judgments of the Hungarian people differ from what can be seen across much of Western Europe.

What do the numbers show in the fight against illegal migration?

Over the last ten years, we have intercepted 1,108,075 border violators. In other words, we prevented that many illegal crossings, thereby serving not only the security of the Hungarian people but also Europe's internal security. In total, 2,927 people have been granted some form of international protection based on their applications: 640 received refugee status, 2,156 received subsidiary protection, and 136 were given temporary protection. Over ten years, 12,120 asylum applications were rejected, not including the 365,000 rejections in 2015. In addition, we apprehended 6,693 human smugglers. This all happened at the border with Serbia. Meanwhile, since February 24, 2022, we have admitted 1,460,106 refugees on the Ukrainian border. For those who requested it, we provided shelter, onward travel, stays in Hungary, and access to healthcare.

How long can Hungary resist Brussels’s mainstream agenda on migration?

The answer is simple: as long as Hungary has a national government, this will remain the case. If instead of a national government, a political force supported by the European Commission were to take power—like the one now trying to replicate the Polish example—then, among other things,

illegal migration would have severe consequences, and irreversible processes would be set in motion.

Cover photo: Gyorgy Bakondi, the Prime Minister’s chief homeland security advisor (Photo: Attila Polyak)