I Went to the EU's Border...What I Found Was Shocking
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In the remote hinterland of Hungary, more than 100 miles southeast of Budapest, I find myself unprepared for the bitterly cold winds that lay siege to the European frontier. Having just been in Brussels to address the EU (its parliament adorned with Hallmark platitudes: “Democracy in Action,” etc.), this place makes for a chilling antidote.
Soviet-like police officers stand remarkably still, exchanging stoic gestures as they explain to my press team (above: Joey Mannarino, Ada Lluch) quite how absolutely impossible it is to keep Middle Eastern fighting-age men from breaking into Hungary (before making their way through Europe and ending up in the hotel in your town).
About 12 feet tall and crowned with stacks of barbed wire, the electric fence runs for some 109 miles along the Hungary-Serbia border. Mostly Muslim men from the Middle East, Pakistan, and Kosovo lurk outside, waiting for an opportunity to breach.
They’ve done their homework. They carry two ladders. One takes them to the top of the barbed wire. They place the second on the Hungarian side in the hope the border patrol is asleep.
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The thickets of barbed wire and electric currents make this a difficult breach. But it’s nothing compared to braving the Channel to reach our shores, so it’s no surprise that Serbia’s migrants try their luck.
What happens when they’re caught?
So tied up in EU legalities is Hungary that they don’t have the power to simply ‘deport’ them. To get around this - and this is mad - they literally walk the apparent asylum seekers up to a portal in the fence and ask them to leave.
The fence is actually a few feet inside the Hungarian border. So, when they walk through the portal, the migrants are still technically in Hungary, yet they have no choice but to walk back, of their own accord, into Serbian territory.
The strategy is smart. It’s one of many reasons so many alt-right journalists and influencers flocked to Hungary last week to attend CPAC Hungary 2026. The country is about to face elections that could see Orban usurped…and, possibly, defences weakened.
“What happens if the migrants say no?” asks journalist Steven Edginton.
“They don’t say no,” replies the officer, with a Hungarian accent and the hint of a smirk. Piercing the solemnity of this remote hinterland, the bathos feels like peak Theroux.
Hungary is essentially trying to do what should be done in Britain, while having both arms tied behind its back with bureaucratic red tape. The EU presumably wants to control its borders (surely?) but, in practice, does all it can to hinder this aim.
They force Hungary to pay for the fence in its entirety, costing the country hundreds of millions of euros per year. Rather than a thank you, the EU actually fined Hungary 200 million euros and continues to make them pay one million euros per day to keep it running. This is because Hungary refuses to engage in the asylum procedure. There are no four-star hotels hosting migrants here. They’d prefer to pay the fine.
And it appears to be working.
At its most besieged, the border patrol had to fight off 400,000 migrants in just a few months. Now, only a few hundred migrants per month try their chances. The reality is that it has become easier to enter through other sites, such as the Mediterranean, where countries feel greater political pressure to comply with EU dogma.
Here’s the problem:
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