Reinforcing Support of the Hungarian Defence Forces in the Border Surveillance Tasks of the Southern Legal Border

Abstract

In 2015, Hungary experienced an unprecedented wave of immigration, with the country serving as a transit state for many refugees. As a result, the Hungarian government erected temporary fences along the Hungarian-Serbian and Hungarian-Croatian borders for border control purposes. However, it became evident that the police forces were incapable of effectively guarding the southern green border before its complete closure. As a result, the Hungarian Defence Forces were required to support the police.

It was hypothesised that the soldiers had received sufficient training in the use of coercive measures and the rules governing the use of weapons prior to their deployment to the border and throughout the execution of border protection duties. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that they had been adequately trained in the activities they were involved in during the execution of border protection duties until their withdrawal from the deployment to the border.

Open sources were used in this thesis as official military sources are not public.

The legal background of the establishment of the border fence and the deployment of the Hungarian Defence Forces were presented as well.

To enhance the quality of border guard and law enforcement training for the Hungarian Defence Forces, I suggest incorporating a minimum of one semester of training for these duties into the officer and non-commissioned officer training programme.