Zoltán Kovács

Marine Le Pen's far-right party was poised Monday to strike an alliance with that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the EU parliament, a day after being dealt a surprise defeat in French elections.

The Hungarian parliament adopted on Wednesday a legal amendment aimed at strengthening the independence of the judicial system, at the suggestion of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, DPA reported.

Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, was even more dismissive of the whole affair at his regular Thursday presser, saying that Putin "would not be arrested in Hungary" because the ICC's Rome Statute was never promulgated in Hungary due to it being "incompatible with the Hungarian constitution".

In this modified history, critics say Orban has cast himself as saviour of a pure nation steeped in Christian values but besieged by external threats: migrants, Muslims, liberal ideologues.

For the story to be believable, academic, educational and cultural institutions have to play along.

Illegal immigration into Hungary has been cut by over 99% after the country built a series of border fences in response to the European migrant crisis.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Chief Security Advisor, György Bakondi has announced that the border fences have cut the number of illegal immigrants entering the country from 391,000 in 2015, to 1,184 in 2017.

Hungary has partly backtracked on its strong support for Bulgaria's entry into the Schengen borderless area, with an official saying the accession criteria should be met first.

The position announced by government spokesman Zoltán Kovács has been reported by Brussels-based website EurActiv.

Stinging comments by Hungarian officials this week lambasting official Greece for failing to properly guard its borders, and by extension the EU’s external borders, apparently hit a “raw nerve” at the Greek foreign ministry.

It is completely unacceptable that authorities in the countries along the so-called Balkan route are helping migrants reach the Schengen border.

This is what Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on Friday.

Hungarian police used tear gas to prevent some 200 migrants to leave a reception center near the border with Serbia on Wednesday, AFP reported.

The police stepped in after migrants tried to leave the refugee registration center in Roszke without being fingerprinted. A police spokesman at the scene told AFP the sitiation has calmed down following the incident.

Hungary has outlined plans to send the army, mounted police and dogs to its southern border to confront record numbers of migrants streaming into the European Union, many fleeing war in Syria. 

Unrest flared briefly at a crowded reception center in the border region of Roszke, with a police spokesman saying tear gas had been fired.