“(It) is clear that Hungary cannot take back these migrants,” the portal quoted Defence Minister István Simicskó telling a joint press conference in Budapest with visiting Austrian counterpart Hans Peter Doskozil. “In order to take them back they would have had to begin their journey here. But… they crossed several countries before arriving in Hungary. They didn’t suddenly get here by magic, they crossed several safe countries”, including Greece, Simicskó reportedly said. 

Under the Dublin Treaty, a country should take bake refugees arriving to the European Union through them, if those refugees are found in the EU elsewhere.

This time, Austria is not sending refugees back to Hungary, claiming “inhuman conditions” refugees are faced in the country, euractiv.com reported. Karl-Heinz Grundboeck, Austrian interior ministry spokesman, however, said that this practice is related to an individual case and did not prevent people being sent back in the future, euractive.com added.

“We have very clear expectations of Hungary. Hungary is after all a member of the EU, the Schengen zone and is party to Dublin. Of course our expectation is that in a Europe with this legal framework, returns to Hungary are possible,” the spokesperson reportedly told AFP.