By Sandor Peto and Shadia Nasralla
BUDAPEST/VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria said on Wednesday it had summoned Hungary's ambassador to explain Budapest's refusal to take in asylum seekers sent to it from other European Union states.
The diplomatic row between the two neighbours is the latest in a mounting crisis in Europe over how to stop illegal migrants coming into the bloc, and how the burden of dealing with them once they've arrived should be shared out.
Several countries on the EU's periphery say the system for tackling migration is broken, but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's decision to halt asylum seeker transfers is the most radical step taken by any European leader so far.
Under an EU agreement, migrants have to apply for asylum in the first member state they enter and if they move onto another EU country, they can be sent back to the country where they entered. Hungary said it was temporarily suspending accepting such transfers back because it was overwhelmed by migrants.
Orban has a history of tangling with Brussels. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in a barbed joke, once described him as a "dictator". Orban, meanwhile, is under political pressure at home from an anti-immigrant far-right opposition party.
A spokesman for the foreign ministry in Austria, which borders Hungary, said Hungary's ambassador was summoned for a meeting about the suspension of the asylum rules.
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz also told his Hungarian counterpart in a phone conversation Austria would not tolerate the suspension, and the government asked the European Commission to look into whether Hungary had violated treaty obligations, the spokesman said.
Hungary stood its ground.
Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Austria and other EU states were planning to send illegal immigrants back to Hungary. "We do not agree with this," he told reporters, though he denied his government was violating EU rules.
"This unbelievable pressure from illegal immigration is causing serious technical and capacity problems," he said.
The numbers of migrants trying to reach Europe are up, driven by conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, and a breakdown in order in states along the southern coast of the Mediterranean, allowing people smugglers to operate with impunity.
Much of the focus has been on countries such as Italy, Greece and Malta, where migrants make landfall after making the hazardous journey across the Mediterranean.
But there is also an overland route into Europe with Hungary as the entry point. Budapest said it is having to shoulder the burden for dealing with the flow with not enough help from Brussels.
Orban's government earlier this month ordered the construction of a fence along Hungary's border with Serbia to keep people from crossing illegally.
(Additional reporting by Krisztina Than; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)
