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Hungary to Close Its Border With Croatia in Migrant Crackdown

WARSAW — Hungary said on Friday that it would close its border with Croatia at midnight to control the flow of thousands of migrants and refugees across Europe.

The Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, told reporters in Budapest that his country was taking the action after completing a razor-wire fence along the 216-mile border and because the European Union had yet to come up with a comprehensive plan to deal with the flow of migrants.

Speaking after a meeting of the Hungarian national security committee, Szijjarto said the government had told Croatia, as well as Austria, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia, about its decision to seal the border.

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Hungary approved the plan to close the border a day after EU leaders agreed to improve border controls and backed a deal with Turkey intended to slow the influx of migrants into Europe.

Aid groups and refugee officials have warned that the closing of any borders between the Greek coast, where many of the migrants first enter Europe, and their intended destinations in Germany, Sweden, or elsewhere would quickly cause a backup of migrants at borders along the West Balkan route. That would lead to new encampments of stranded migrants behind blocked borders, as happened over the summer.

A spokesman for the Croatian Interior Ministry, Domagoj Dzigumovic, said that there would be no change “for now” in his country’s practice of processing migrants and moving them toward the Hungarian border.

It was not clear if Croatia was testing Hungary’s resolve or if it had simply been caught off guard.

In a brief statement Friday after Hungary’s announcement, Croatian officials said the country had coordinated with Slovenia to create a new route for the migrants in the event Hungary closed its border. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic of Croatia and his Slovenian counterpart, Miro Cerar, have been in close contact about the migrant situation, the governments said.

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“In case the border is closed on the Hungarian side, Croatia will begin this plan in agreement and constant coordination with Slovenia,” the statement said.

Hungary closed its 108-mile border with Serbia last month after more than 150,000 migrants entered the country from the West Balkans, en route to Germany and other destinations.

As a result, the migrant flow shifted west, into Croatia, and until now people have been allowed to register and cross the Hungarian border on their way to Austria and beyond.

Although details of the closing of the border with Croatia were unclear, Hungary’s move could shift the migrant flow even further west, through Slovenia, which has been nervously preparing for that possibility.

Hungary seemed to have decided to close the border for two reasons: It finally finished construction of the fence along the Croatian frontier but, more crucially, Hungarian leaders were unsatisfied by the result of a European Council summit on Thursday in Brussels, where leaders agreed on a plan to address the migration crisis.

For months, Budapest has complained that the failure of Greece, the migrants’ initial entry point, to control the human flow had shifted the burden to Hungary and other EU nations.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has repeatedly called for a multinational European effort to intercept refugees at the Greek border rather than dealing with the influx piecemeal, at borders throughout the Balkans and Central Europe.

“The European Council meeting has not resulted in any decision that would provide for defending the common borders of the European Union with European forces,” said Szijjarto.

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