EU Commission Rejects Hungary's Demand to Co-Finance Border Fence

The European Commission will not finance the construction of a border fence at the borders of Hungary as demanded by Budapest, the commission's spokesman Alexander Winterstein said Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Thursday, Budapest demanded the European Union to participate in funding the construction of a fence on the country's borders with Serbia and Croatia as a gesture of solidarity, citing that Hungary protects the 28-nation bloc against  undocumented migrants.

"We are not financing the construction of fences or barriers at the external borders," Winterstein said, as quoted by the EUobserver media outlet.

The EU official added, commenting Budapest's request of solidarity, that it was a "two-way street," referring Hungary's refusal to accept asylum seekers from the Mediterranean EU member states.

The European Union has been struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis which escalated in 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people began fleeing from the Middle East and North Africa in search for asylum in EU member states.

Hungary, which has been one of the countries significantly affected by the migration crisis, has taken a number of steps to tackle it. It had constructed fences on the borders with its neighbors and tightened its migration laws.