HUNGARY: Border guards from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine meet in Budapest saying joint action is working well

Border guards from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine gathered on Friday (August 18) to determine the success of a joint border-project to fight illegal immigration. The assessment meeting, held in Budapest, analysed the partly EU financed Action-Chain project, which was introduced in 2000. The main aim of the programme was to create a strong regional co-operation between the EU members of Central Europe and the non-EU member Ukraine on their common borders to limit illegal migration. These country's borders are the external borders of the EU, and illegal migration is ripe. EU financed the Action-Chain project with 183,000 euros and the programme has included simultaneous actions on the borders, joint criminal investigations, implementing expulsion agreements and exchanging statistical and other information. Some 1,400 border guards took part in the project along the 760 km long borderline, checking some 73,000 people and revealing more than one hundred illegal actions. The Hungarian border guards caught 92 illegal migrants mainly from Ukraine, Romania and Moldavia. The head of the Hungarian border guards, Major General Istvan Samu said the co-operation had worked well and that it will continue. "We managed to create an exemplary co-operation, the three EU countries with a third [Non- EU] one, Ukraine. And this is not only our positive evaluation but the European Union also confirmed this evaluation because even before this programme ends on August 31st, the EU already gave the go ahead for new funds for us, for the continuation of this co-operation," Samu said. His Polish colleague stressed the need for continued actions. "Development of our criminal investigation actions. All these elements are steps towards better co-ordination, better combating of trans-border crimes. So from our Polish point of view it's our common business, our own business, our regional business to reduce the threat on our border," said Director of the International co-operation office of the Polish border guards, Piotr Stocki Ukraine's representative, Colonel-general Pavlo Shisholin, said illegal immigration problems have eased on the Hungarian-Ukrainian border as a result of the two countries co-operation. But while illegal immigration of Ukrainian citizens may have eased on Hungary's eastern borders the problem remain acute elsewhere. On the Austrian-Hungarian and Hungarian-Slovenian border illegal migrants from Ukraine are caught weekly. Hungarian border guards say that since 2004 the Ukrainian illegal migrants have dramatically increased with 80-90 people often caught over a weekend. The majority of illegal migrants trying to cross into Austria from Hungary are from Ukraine. In September and October last year the border guards joined forces with the police and arrested and expelled 1,500 people, mostly Ukrainians. And after a slight drop in illegal migration, the numbers are once again increasing. People caught and set to be expelled are transferred from the border to a detention centre in the nearby town of Gyor. They usually spend 1-2 days locked up behind bars with heavy security before being sent back.

ITN Source | August 20, 2006

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