Hungarian Ambassador to Germany Peter Györkös told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland newspaper group that the EU "should export its help, not import unsolvable problems on European soil."

"We need to help on the ground," he stressed in the interview, adding that Hungary's efforts to protect the EU's external borders represented "responsibility and solidarity." Györkös also claimed that "this Hungarian position has been shared more and more widely since 2015," referring to the onset of the so-called refugee crisis. 

He also added that Hungary did its own part to save people who helped Hungarian staff in Afghanistan: According to the embassy, the Hungarian army flew 540 people out of Kabul via airlift, including US citizens and Austrians. The "majority" of local Afghan personnel who supported Hungarian troops in Afghanistan were reportedly brought to safety in Hungary -- a total of 47 families made up of 540 people, including 189 children. 

Read more: Migrants entering EU via the 'Balkan route' up 90% on 2020

Hungary's anti-migrant stance

Hungary reacted to hundreds of thousands of refugees coming to Europe in 2015 -- mainly from war-torn Syria -- by erecting a 150-kilometer-long barbed-wire fence on its border with neighboring Serbia that same year. This has reportedly cost €1.5 billion so far to build and to maintain. The leadership of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party has been running on a staunchly anti-immigrant platform for more than a decade, often breaking EU law in order to remain true to their election pledges.

The flow of migrants and refugees into the European Union has considerably slowed down since then, but the public debate on asylum seekers reaching the bloc has been rekindled across the bloc recently ever since the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and the forceful Taliban takeover of the nation. Experts say there could be a new wave of refugees trying to reach Europe, trying to flee Taliban rule.

Read more: Taliban would take back Europe's Afghan criminal deportees to face courts, says spokesperson

Austria's 'reservations' and solutions

In addition to Hungary, neighboring Austria and Slovenia have also said they would also refuse to accept a larger number of refugees from Afghanistan, with fierce public debates polarizing public opinion.

In Austria, the daily Die Presse newspaper published an op-ed, saying that while Austria had done more than most other European nations to save people in Afghanistan, the country should continue to accept refugees on a case-by-case basis.

"Austria has so far taken in more Afghan refugees -- around 42,000 -- than most other EU states. (...) Problems with the integration of these people are also part of Austria's reservations, which can be argued without emotional distortion," the newspaper said, adding that it was, however, "inhumane and untrustworthy" of the Austrian government "not to accept a single endangered woman, not a single endangered family from the country occupied by the radical Islamic Taliban."

As a concrete solution, the newspaper suggested that "it would be acceptable to bring a selected group of vulnerable people to Austria through the UNHCR's resettlement program."

With AFP, dpa