Hungary is racing to finish building a fence to block migrants.
The plan is for a barrier stretching 108 miles along the border with Serbia. The country’s prime minister says the barrier is necessary to halt migrants wishing to reach Europe by entering a nation in the visa-free Schengen area.
Last month PM Viktor Orban said undocumented immigrants coming from the “depths of Africa” were a threat to Europe’s existence.
In its race to complete the fence by the end of August, nearly 500 unemployed people on benefits have been drafted into the effort. Refusal would put their allowances at risk.
If they pass medical evaluation of their fitness, the draftees will put in eight-hour shifts on the construction work.
Critics have dubbed the anti-immigration fence Europe’s new Iron Curtain.
One man who has been called up told a local paper he was promised the equivalent of about £116 a month plus two daily meals, but if he refused he thought he could lose the £52 he receives every month in unemployment.
Since it was elected in 2010, the Hungarian government has been quickly slashing unemployment benefits, leaving it with some of the toughest rules in Europe. It plans to eliminate them altogether by 2018.
At the same time, it has been enlarging public work programmes with unemployed people expected to provide the labour.
