Foreign Policies

Slovakia Sending 40 Police Officers to Hungarian-Serbian Border

Bratislava, October 20 (TASR) – Slovakia is sending 40 police officers to the Hungarian-Serbian border to help their Hungarian counterparts reduce the pressure of illegal migration, said Interior Minister Roman Mikulec (OLaNO) on Thursday, reiterating that the solution to illegal migration is protecting the external Schengen border, not internal border checks.

The minister went on to say that Slovak police officers will operate in mixed patrols. Their mission should last two months for now, after which it should be reassessed. He noted that police officers from other countries, such as Austria, also operate on the Hungarian border. Whether other countries will join in strengthening the external border is a question for the future.

“We’re preparing another 20 or 30 police officers for Frontex because we think that Frontex is the European Union agency that should help to secure the external border,” said Mikulec, adding that most EU-member states agreed with these proposals at a ministerial meeting in Luxembourg last week.

Police Corps President Stefan Hamran added that the Slovak presence on the border is above all moral support for Hungary. “They have been in it on their own for many years. I’m very glad that the political elites at the European level agreed with what the minister and I have been saying for a long time – not to introduce internal border checks, but to strengthen the external border and help our partners,” he stressed.

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