Hungarian PM greets new border police, says their job is top priority

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban greeted a new contingent of freshly graduated border police here on Thursday, telling them their work was a national security priority.

Orban predicted that outside pressure on European Union(EU) borders would continue in the years to come, making the job of the 532 new graduates a long-term investment in security for both Hungary and the EU, since Hungary was protecting the European Union's external borders just as it had been protecting Europe for the past 500 years, he said.

Orban said his border policing initiative had proven that it was possible to halt immigration. He argued that the terrorist attacks, riots, violence, crime, and ethnic and cultural conflicts proved that the people "coming here do not want to adopt our way of life" but to retain their own along with a European standard of living.

He called Hungary one of the safest countries in the European Union, thanks to the efforts of the police and armed forces, but warned that even though there have been no terrorist actions in Hungary, that could change.

Orban also said that the EU would have been better off listening to Hungary from the outset instead of criticizing its border protection initiative.

A growing number of EU countries are now following our example, he noted, warning that Brussels had still not given up its idea of distributing the two million people who had entered the EU illegally among EU countries, whether they want them or not.

When borders were still open in 2015, over 391,000 migrants entered Hungary on their way to Western Europe. The numbers fell dramatically in 2016 after Hungary introduced border control measures. In addition to fences along the Serbian and Croatian borders there are currently between 6,000 and 10,000 border patrol agents stationed in the area.

Hungary plans to train 3,000 police in border policing activity. The current 532 graduates are part of that group. Enditem