Hungary has been left on its own to cope with the migration crisis for too long, the chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has acknowledged.

Veteran German MEP Elmar Brok, a member of the European People’s Party’s (EPP) parliamentary group for Germany’s governing conservative CDU party, told German public radio in connection with the recent violent incident at the Röszke border crossing station that several migrants attempted to cross the border violently. He added that critical opinions from Germany are “listened to” in Hungary.

The senior conservative politician also claimed that the EU’s reaction to the refugee crisis was belated and Hungary was left on its own for too long in handling the situation, stressing that the crisis can only be settled effectively where it evolved and branded the cut of financial support to refugee camps operating in states neighbouring Syria “scandalous”. The EU’s other priority should be to establish the quota system to serve the “reasonable” distribution of migrants as soon as possible and secure adequate registration, he said.

Speaking to German public radio from Budapest on Thursday, Steffi Lemke, a member of the board leading the parliamentary group of the opposition Greens, also criticized the European Union for reacting “too late, too weakly and poorly to the crisis and said that European refugee policy has failed as a result of the migratory wave. Ms. Lemke also said that there is no use in singling out each other and said that based on her experiences in Budapest, Hungarians feel that they have been left on their own to deal with the crisis.