{"id":2205,"date":"2017-09-01T14:57:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T13:57:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/?p=2205"},"modified":"2025-05-26T15:00:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T14:00:30","slug":"hungary-asks-eu-to-pay-the-half-of-its-fences-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/2017\/09\/01\/hungary-asks-eu-to-pay-the-half-of-its-fences-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary asks EU to pay the half of its fence\u2019s costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Hungary \u2013 On Thursday, August 31, Hungarian government officially asked the European Commission to show some \u201csolidarity\u201d and pay half of the cost Hungary has incurred for border management.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n has asked Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, for the Commission to make a 50 percent (which means \u20ac 440 million) contribution to the barrier protecting the external Schengen border along Hungary\u2019s southern frontier, can we read on the governmental news page About Hungary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would like to see solidarity manifested in specific actions, rather than in mere messages,\u201d said J\u00e1nos L\u00e1z\u00e1r, the minister heading the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, to the press. \u201cHungary has adhered to the protection of the European Union\u2019s Schengen borders ever since the outbreak of the migration crisis, and with the construction of the border fence and the training of border guards \u2013 which were financed by Hungarian taxpayers \u2013 Hungary does not only protect itself, but every citizen of the continent against the flood of illegal immigrants,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is no exaggeration to claim that the safety and security of European citizens are also protected by Hungarian police officers and soldiers,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Minister L\u00e1z\u00e1r pointed out that the Commission had already provided assistance to several countries: \u201cGreece has already received one half of the promised 1 billion EUR, Italy has been given 656 million EUR, and Bulgaria will receive 100 million EUR. It is time that Hungary, too, should submit its request,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hungary should indeed protect its borders\u2026 but not with a fence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The European Commission gave on Friday, September 1, an open answer to the Hungarian government. Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein told the Commission might consider the demand, but \u201c[the Commission is] not financing the construction of fences or barriers at the external borders. We do support border management measures at the external borders \u2013 this can be surveillance measures, this can be border control equipment. But fences, we do not finance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSolidarity is a two-way street and all member states should be ready to contribute. This is not some sort of an \u2018<em>\u00e0 la carte\u00a0<\/em>menu\u2019 where you pick one dish, for example border management, whilst refusing another dish, like \u2026 relocation,\u201d added Mr Winterstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hungary \u2013 On Thursday, August 31, Hungarian government officially asked the European Commission to show some \u201csolidarity\u201d and pay half of the cost Hungary has incurred for border management. Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n has asked Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, for the Commission to make a 50 percent (which means \u20ac 440 million)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"acf":{"subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/visegradpost.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}