In an official letter addressed to the European Commissioner for Budget and Administration, Johannes Hahn, on Thursday, Hungarian Finance Minister Mihály Varga reminded that although there has long been consensus that defending the borders of the European Union is a collective responsibility of member states, Hungary almost exclusively bears the financial burden of protecting its southern Schengen border.

A police patrol car near Ásotthalom, at the Hungarian-Serbian border. Photo by ​MTI/Zoltán Máthé

In a letter published on Thursday on his Facebook profile, Finance Minister Mihály Varga pointed out that thanks to the actions of Hungarian authorities since 2015, a million illegal border crossings have been prevented at the southern border of the European Union. The Hungarian minister also noted that the migratory pressure continues to increase, and in 2023 alone, Hungarian border guards took action against 100,000 illegal migrants. Since 2015, the Hungarian government has already spent over 1.6 billion euros on border protection, while the European Union has covered only one percent of these costs for safeguarding the common EU border.

‘In the spirit of common cost bearing and in light of the new tasks, we consider it reasonable to expect that the available resources shall also be modified. The aim of my letter is to call your attention to a lack of such modification,’ Hungarian minister Mihály Varga concluded.

(J)