Prime Minister Viktor Orban has criticized European Union
proposals for migrant quotas as "bordering on insanity".
The quotas were drafted in response to the thousands of deaths among
asylum-seekers trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean. The
crisis has grown acute this year.
Antal Rogan, the head of Fidesz' parliamentary group, said on Sunday
that by the end of May, 50,000 migrants had crossed Hungary's
borders illegally, compared with 43,000 in the whole of 2014.
Most asylum-seekers move on to other European Union member states
but Germany and Austria have signaled that they were planning to
send some 15,000 migrants back to Hungary.
He said that therefore, "urgent steps" needed to be taken.
"Fidesz' parliamentary faction is considering drawing up a bill and
practically making a proposal to close the southern border with
certain legal means," Rogan told Kossuth radio.
"In practice this would mean that we'd pass a law saying that those
entering Hungary from a safe country, from a safe transit country,
cannot apply for political asylum here."
Rogan said migrants' lives may have been in danger in Syria but they
crossed Greece, Serbia or some other countries in the Balkans where
they were already safe and could apply for asylum there.
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Hungary borders Romania, Serbia and Croatia on the south. Serbia is
not an EU member, and Croatia and Romania are not members of the
EU's borderless Schengen zone.
Most asylum-seekers came to Hungary from Kosovo, Afghanistan and
Syria last year.
Rogan did not say when Fidesz would draw up the legislation.
The Hungarian government also launched a public campaign against
illegal migrants last week, with billboards saying: "If you come to
Hungary, you can't take away the jobs of Hungarians."
Fidesz has lost ground in polls to the far-right, anti-immigrant
Jobbik party and analysts say that its moves against migrants were
intended in part to halt that.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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