Hungary's government is ready to provide free one-way tickets to Brussels to migrants trying to enter the EU and asylum seekers, the Associated Press reported.
Speaking at a press conference in Budapest, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, criticized a June ruling by the European Court of Justice that fined Hungary €200m for persistently breaching the bloc's asylum rules .
The EU has hit out at Hungary's unusually strict asylum system and asked the bloc's top court to fine Budapest.
In his words, Brussels is trying to force Budapest in all possible ways to accept migrants. He stressed that if the EU continues to impose regulations on Hungary that do not allow migrants to be detained at the border, then his country will offer every migrant free transport to Brussels.
Gulias criticized the fines imposed on Hungary and noted that his country does not want to pay this daily fine indefinitely, so we will make it possible for people to come in if they want and offer them a one-way ticket to Brussels. If Brussels wants migrants, it can have them, he added.
The Hungarian government has taken a tough stance on people entering the country since more than 1 million people entered Europe in 2015, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria. The country has built fences protected by barbed wire on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia.