Hungary is making preparations for a "massive" new fence on its border with Serbia to keep out refugees and migrants, amid rising fears that an EU-Turkey deal to reduce the flow of asylum seekers to Europe could collapse.
The Hungarian government of prime minister Viktor Orban built fences on the country's southern frontiers with Serbia and Croatia last autumn, to divert a "Balkan route" along which more than one million people reached Europe last year.
The number of asylum seekers transiting the region is now far smaller, after Balkan states officially closed their borders to migrants in March and Turkey agreed to do more to stop people reaching Greece in return for a package of promises and financial aid from the EU.
Relations between Brussels and Ankara have deteriorated sharply in recent months, however, amid western concerns over democracy and human rights in Turkey and counterclaims that the EU is failing to fulfil the deal on refugees.
Turkish prime minister Binali Yildirim warned on Friday that if the EU failed to deliver the promised funds and to ease visa restrictions for Turks, “the refugee issue will not remain within Turkey’s borders, it risks turning into a huge regional problem that will concern the whole of Europe”.
Earlier, Mr Orban said the possible failure of the EU-Turkey agreement necessitated the construction of a new border barrier “capable of stopping several hundreds of thousands of people”.
“Technical planning is under way to erect a more massive defence system next to the existing line of defence which was built quickly [last year],” Mr Orban told Hungarian public radio.
“Then if it does not work with nice words, we will have to stop them with force, and we will do so . . . The border cannot be defended with flowers and cuddly toys, the border can be defended with police, soldiers and weapons,” he added.
‘Poison’
Mr Orban has called the mostly Muslim refugees and migrants “poison”, saying they represent a direct threat to Europe’s security, culture and identity.
He has called a national referendum for October on German-led plans to distribute refugees from war zones such as Syria around the EU – a scheme that Hungary and Slovakia are challenging in the courts.
“Immigration and migrants damage Europe’s security, are a threat to people and bring terrorism upon us,” Mr Orban said, denouncing the largely uncontrolled arrival of people “from areas where Europe and the western world are seen as the enemy”.
“Hungary’s borders are the gates of Europe and we will defend our borders 100 percent,” he added.
Later, at a meeting with German, Polish, Czech and Slovak leaders in Warsaw, Mr Orban said “we should list the issue of security as a priority, and we should start setting up a common European army”.
Earlier this week, Hungary offered to send troops to Serbia to help it prevent asylum seekers crossing from Macedonia and Bulgaria, often with the help of people smugglers. An Afghan was shot dead this month near the Serbia-Bulgaria border, and a Serbian hunter was detained by police.
