"Extremely challenging situation" at the Hungarian-Serbian border

Border surveillance: stronger co-operation with Hungary and Serbia

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The Austrian Ministry of the Interior now also speaks of an "extremely challenging situation" at the Hungarian-Serbian border.  And: Hungary needs support from the EU countries.

Austria, Hungary and Serbia will co-operate more closely than before in monitoring their borders during the summer.  Austria is to support the Hungarian and Serbian police in setting up an "anti-smuggling task force", according to the Interior Ministry in Vienna.

The cross-border cooperation will take place both at the level of criminal investigators, but also through Austrian police officers on duty directly at the Hungarian-Serbian border, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said in a statement on Saturday.  "In view of the current challenges", co-operation "in the fight against smuggling gangs and illegal migration is more important than ever".

Refugees are "aggressive and armed"

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had only in mid-July, during a visit to Vienna, railed against an increasing number of refugees from the south and "refugee-friendly Brussels".  The refugees at the southern border are "aggressive" and "armed", Szijjarto claimed.  Hungary calls itself a "breakwater" for Europe "in the fight against migration from the south".  The right-wing nationalist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is known for its rigid refugee policy.  At the 150-kilometre-long border with Serbia, the barbed wire fence built there in 2015 during the refugee crisis is now to be raised by one metre.  A new border fence is also to be built in the Danube-Drava National Park at the border triangle with Serbia and Croatia.

The Austrian Ministry of the Interior now also speaks of an "extremely challenging situation" on the Hungarian-Serbian border.  And: Hungary needs the support of the EU countries.  Last week, the Austrian Director General for Public Security, Franz Ruf, travelled to the Hungarian-Serbian border together with the heads of the Austrian border police and anti-smuggling units to consult with the Hungarian provincial police chief.  At the border post in Röszke and at the command centre in Mórahalom, there was talk of border police officers being "attacked with sticks, stones and projectiles".  Armed conflicts between the smugglers had become more frequent, and there was increasing competition.

310 traffickers apprehended

In Austria, more than 310 traffickers were apprehended in the first half of the year until mid-July.  Their nationalities were "very diverse": they were, for example, Hungarian, Serbian and Romanian citizens, but also refugees who would save the costs of the actual traffickers, for example by driving a vehicle.

Austria is also strongly affected by "irregular migration".  Unlike Germany, France and northern European countries, Austria is not the "number one destination country", according to the Ministry of the Interior.  Most of the people who tried to flee to the EU came from the war-torn countries of Syria and Afghanistan.  They can apply for asylum, which then "has to be processed", according to the Ministry of the Interior.  The "likelihood of protection for these two nationalities is extensive".  Also in Hungary?  "To a manageable extent." Those who can, therefore, try again across the border.  In addition to Syria and Afghanistan, people from so-called safe countries of origin such as Tunisia, Pakistan and Bangladesh are also taking the escape route.

167 percent more refugees

According to data from the Belgrade Centre for Asylum Assistance in mid-June, the number of refugees on the route through Serbia was more than 167 per cent higher than in the previous year.  According to Rados Djurovic, head of the Centre, between 200 and 250 people entered Serbia illegally every day from Kosovo, Northern Macedonia and Bulgaria. At the same time, the number of so-called pushbacks to neighbouring EU countries also increased, according to Djurovic. The Belgrade Centre for Asylum Assistance recorded more than 1,083 cases of refugees being illegally pushed back to Serbia from neighbouring EU countries - Hungary, Romania and Croatia - in the first five months of this year. According to Djurovic, however, the number of unreported pushbacks is probably much higher.  In the first four months of the year, 95 refugees succeeded in applying for asylum in Serbia, and two of them were granted it.

NGOs like "SOS Balkanroute" and "Omas gegen Rechts-Grannies against the Right" have already criticised Austria's co-operation with Hungary and Serbia.  SOS Balkanroute" on Facebook, for example, speaks of "inhuman horror images of Serbian police operations along the EU's external borders, which are supported structurally, in terms of personnel and financially by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior".  Last week, the Kleine Zeitung picked up on a report by the NGO, according to which the Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin had told the press that Serbia was "not a car park for scum from Asia".  According to the NGO, photographs sent out by the Serbian Interior Ministry show "hundreds of men" who "hold their arms above their heads on command, walk bent over and finally kneel in front of the Serbian Interior Minister Vulin, who accompanied the operation in a black uniform".

"Grannies against the Right" against co-operation

The spokesperson of "Grannies against the Right", Susanne Scholl, described the co-operation with the Serbian government as "unbelievable that the Austrian body politic co-operates with such people".  On the small chance of receiving asylum in Serbia and the EU country, Hungary, she told APA that this made it "more incomprehensible" that Austria was sending refugees back there. "We have an inhumane way of dealing with people on the run."

Especially in the current situation, the Serbian police is an "important and reliable partner in the fight against organised trafficking in human beings", stressed a spokesperson for Interior Minister Karner. The Minister will address the "statements circulated in the media" at the next meeting with the Serbian interior minister.

Co-operation at the borders will also be a focus of the meeting between Federal Chancellor Nehammer (ÖVP) and Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán in Vienna on Thursday.  As of 1 September, Hungary also plans to have an additional unit ready for deployment to monitor its borders.  In the first intake, 2,200 border guards are to be recruited, with a total - according to the target - of 4,000 personnel.  The training will be shortened and the training content will be designed for border guards, similar to the Austrian border police assistants, according to the Austrian Ministry of the Interior.  Support for the training of the new border police has accordingly been offered by Ruf, the Director General for Public Security.