HUNGARY-SERBIA/KOSOVO MIGRANTS Hungary turns to international help to stem Kosovar migrant flow

Record ID: 348853

  • Title: HUNGARY-SERBIA/KOSOVO MIGRANTS Hungary turns to international help to stem Kosovar migrant flow
  • Date: 19th February 2015
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (FEBRUARY 19, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF EASTERN RAILWAY STATION EU AND HUNGARIAN FLAGS ON FACADE PEOPLE WALKING TO PLATFORM OF TRAINS BOUND FOR AUSTRIA AND GERMANY SIGN SHOWING RAILJET TRAIN TO MUNICH BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (FEBRUARY 18, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF HUNGARIAN AND AUSTRIAN JOINT POLICE PATROL BEGINNING JOINT OPERATION AND CHECKING PAPERS OF KOS
  • Embargoed: 6th March 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA56EV971ALUERB5W47KN8OO2SR
  • Story Text: Hungarian, Austrian and German police officers began a joint operation on Wednesday (February 18) at train stations from which Kosovar migrants are trying to get into Germany and Austria.
    On their first day three Kosovar men were detained with papers that were not valid for Schengen countries. The new police unit detained and transported them to the immigration police.
    The operation is also to patrol Railjet trains to Germany and all stations from which western-bound trains depart in order to halt those migrants who were not caught along the borders.
    "The main problem for us at present is the secondary migration within the country. Due to the new measures there is a decreasing number of migrants entering the country but those who hand in an asylum request receive a legal status to stay in the country. But if they want to leave Hungary and they don't have the conditions to travel further they will be detained by the immigration police," Inland Special Force Police Lieutenant Colonel Balazs Peto told journalists on Thursday (February 19).
    The Kosovars, frustrated by continued poverty and unemployment 15 years after breaking away from Serbia, are taking advantage of the fact that Serbia has made it easier for them to leave by recognising their travel papers.
    "We can approach Serbian authorities to propose them to deploy observers, kind of liaison officers, though it is not correct wording, but let's say observers on Hungarian territory if Hungary agree to do so. And this could help Serbian authorities to detect those irregular migrants coming from Kosovo, but to detect them earlier, in Serbian territory," the executive director of the European Union's Frontex border cooperation agency, Fabrice Leggeri, said on Tuesday (February 17).
    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week that Hungary planned to pass a law to allow the extended detention or rapid deportation of illegal immigrants, to avoid becoming a "camp" for economic migrants.
    Hungary is experiencing a surge of illegal entries from the south, mostly from impoverished Kosovo, the source of 10,000 asylum applications in January alone.
    Most apply for asylum to stave off immediate deportation and secure their release. While their applications are being processed, they give immigration authorities the slip and push on westwards through the EU's borderless Schengen zone.
    Orban told public Kossuth radio last week that Austria and Germany, where most of the migrants are heading, would tighten their own rules within months and the migrants would then remain in Hungary.
    "If I receive a mandate from the Hungarians here for my very strong stance that those who cross [illegally] into Hungary should be detained, and kept under surveillance, so locked up and expelled as soon as possible, if I get a mandate for this -- which is indeed different from the European immigration policy -- then I can get this through with Brussels," Orban said.
    "If we do not have laws that allow us to detain them immediately and deport them back, then Hungary will become a camp for economic migrants," he added.
    The parliamentary leader of Orban's Fidesz party, Antal Rogan, last Friday floated the idea of keeping asylum seekers in detention until their applications were assessed, and expelling rejected applicants with immediate effect.
    Almost all are likely to be viewed as economic migrants with no claim to asylum; Germany rejected about 99 percent of applications from Kosovars last year.
    Human rights organization the Helsinki Committee said they were shocked by Orban's proposal.
    "We, as a human rights organization, find this completely appalling and contrary to all human rights and EU legal provisions. Actually I doubt whether the Hungarian lawmaker will venture so far to provide for the detention of all asylum seekers. In addition to the legal obstacles it would simply be impossible, completely impractical and extraordinarily expensive," the head of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Marta Pardavi, said.
    "They will try to find alternative routes into Europe so I think simply putting up stronger border controls or border enforcement will not necessarily in and of itself lend a solution to this problem. What we need is a European co-operation, actually. Kosovo has to be helped, the EU needs to step up development aid to Kosovo in order to get at the root of this problem and to...So that Kosovo could be a viable, liveable place for its population," she added.
    Leggeri said that if other routes are found, Frontex would support the member countries affected.
    "If this kind of irregular migrants move to another section of the external border, Frontex can support other member states if other member states are affected. If they decide, if these Kosovar nationals decide to use another section of external border maybe we will have to support other member states," he said.
    Since September, more than 30,000 have been caught in Hungary, compared with 6,000 for the whole of 2013.
    The exodus is fuelled by widespread poverty, high unemployment - particularly among young people - and stubborn corruption, seven years after Kosovo seceded from Serbia. It has coincided with a period of political turbulence and unrest since an election in June.
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