Hungary will file a lawsuit against the European Commission, asking it to cover the costs it has paid to protect the European Union’s external borders, which Budapest says has cost it around 2 billion euros, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff said

“We are ready to sue the European Commission asking it to partially or fully pay the costs incurred by the member states for the protection of the Schengen borders,” said Gergeli Goulias.

“Hungary has spent two billion euros on protecting the Schengen border in recent years without receiving any substantial contribution from the EU.”

Orban said he was vindicated by Germany’s decision to impose tighter controls on all its land borders in a bid to tackle irregular immigration.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban closed a major route through Hungary that hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty had followed in 2015, boosting his support at home but drawing criticism from many allies in the EU.

Checks within a normal wide free movement zone — Europe’s Schengen zone — will begin on September 16 and will initially last for six months. It is a decision that marks a change from Berlin’s previous open-door policy.

“We can see that there are changes in Europe,” said Goulias. “In 2015, the Hungarian Prime Minister was the first to clearly say that if the EU does not enforce Community law and the Schengen Agreement… then Schengen will collapse.”

Goulias said Berlin’s decision to impose border controls from Monday meant Germany was destroying the free movement zone within the EU.

“First he destroyed it by not making EU member states effectively protect external borders and now he is destroying it by imposing internal border controls