News Digest

Serbia PM ‘shocked’ by Hungary plan to build anti-migrant fence

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said he was “surprised and shocked” by the Hungarian government’s plan to close the border with Serbia and erect a four-metre-high (13-foot) fence along their shared border to keep out migrants. The Hungarian government is considering the fence to stop the flow of migrants reaching the country, the Foreign Minister said. The Serbian PM said the country has no plans itself to build walls or 'isolate itself’ and spoke of his confusion with the decision. Vucic added that migrants who cross into Serbia have come through European Union states such as Bulgaria and Greece and says Serbia offers them assistance and food, but insists they do not want to stay in Serbia, they are merely passing through.

Building walls is not the solution. Serbia can’t be responsible for the situation created by the migrants, we are just a transit country. Is Serbia responsible for the crisis in Syria?

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic

Since the second half of 2014, the number of migrants and asylum seekers entering Hungary, mostly across the southern border with Serbia, has risen markedly. So far this year, more than 53,000 people have requested asylum in Hungary, up from under 43,000 in 2014 and 2,150 in 2012. Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó also said that, in line with a bill presented last week by lawmakers from the governing Fidesz party, the government was taking legal preliminary steps to designate all EU member and candidate countries as safe countries. This step would allow Hungary, for example, from having to receive asylum seekers coming from Serbia or Greece, countries not considered by the EU to have the infrastructure necessary to guarantee their safety. Szijjarto named the Greek-Turkish and the Bulgarian-Turkish borders as locations where similar fences have been built with the purpose of stopping migrants.