Hungary’s right-wing government shut the main land route for migrants into the EU yesterday, taking matters into its own hands to halt Europe’s unprecedented influx of refugees while the bloc failed to agree a plan to distribute them.
Crowds of migrants built up at Serbia’s northern border with Hungary, their passage blocked by a razor wire fence.
Under new rules that took effect from midnight, Hungary says anyone seeking asylum at the Serbian border will automatically be turned back. Anyone trying to sneak through will face jail.
Photo: AFP
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of the continent’s loudest opponents of mass immigration, says he is acting to save Europe’s “Christian values” by blocking the main overland route used by mainly Muslim refugees, through the Balkans and across his country via its border with Serbia.
In scenes with echoes of the Cold War, families with small children sat in fields beneath the former communist country’s new 3.5m high fence, which runs almost the length of the border.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been arriving at the EU’s southern and eastern edges and making their way to the richer countries further north and west, in the greatest migration to Western Europe since World War II.
Photo: AFP
With emergency talks having failed to break a deadlock over an EU plan to force member countries to accept quotas of refugees, German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maiziere said the bloc should consider imposing financial penalties on countries that refuse.
Record arrivals forced Germany and several neighbors to reimpose emergency frontier controls this week, unravelling two decades of borderless travel within the 26-member Schengen zone, one of the EU’s flagship achievements.
Germany and other countries say Europe has a moral obligation to accept refugees and other EU states must do their part.
Eastern European countries say a more welcoming stance only encourages more people to make dangerous voyages, and risks attracting an uncontrolled influx of millions.
Under its new rules, Hungary said it will now automatically turn back refugees who arrive by land at its border with Serbia.
The Thai government on Friday announced that Taiwanese would be allowed to stay in the country for up to 60 days per entry, under the Southeast Asian country’s visa-free program starting from today. Taiwan is among 93 countries included in the Thai visa-waiver program, which has been expanded from 57 countries, with the visa-exempt entry extended from 30 to 60 days. After taking office last year, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has vowed to grant more visa waivers to foreign travelers as part of efforts to stimulate tourism. The expanded visa-waiver program was on Friday signed by Thai Minister of the Interior Anutin
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