Despite having no coast and receiving little publicity, landlocked Hungary is also trying to cope with an influx of migrants.
When hundreds of people in an overcrowded migrant camp began a fight and were hurling rocks, police fired tear gas.
The camp has capacity for some 820 people, but is holding 1,655. It is in the city of Debrecen, 230 km east of the capital Budapest.
The disturbance started between a Turkish migrant and an Afghan migrant but soon escalated with hundreds involved.
“They broke out of the camp, occupied a road, pelted rocks and set fire to garbage containers. Police then forced them back into the camp," according to the Interior Ministry.
Hungary belongs to the EU's Schengen area where no visas are required. This has attracted tens of thousands of migrants, especially from the Middle East, seeing a way to get to Europe through the Balkans.
In the first six months of 2015, the number of migrants using Hungary’s border with Serbia to enter the EU exceeded 66,000. This was more than the number arriving in Italy.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has begun building a 175 km long fence along the border with Serbia, much to Serbia’s dismay.
The on-going crisis, probably hitting its peak now in the warmer months, is one for which the EU has shown little aptitude other than thinking that every EU country can take a share of a limited number without spelling out what to do with the greater number remaining.
Southern countries, particularly Italy and Greece, have been expected to absorb hundreds of thousands. Former Communist states in central and eastern Europe are fearful of the disruption and cost involved in accepting a share.
Antipathy towards the EU open borders is growing, but even with closed borders the problem would be the same. It would deserve an EU response, although it need not be Europe alone with provides refuge for people fleeing from wild men with Kalashnikovs and machetes.
