The prime minister, in his regular Friday morning radio interview, spoke frankly about the vote this week in the European Parliament and the coming clash between Europe’s pro-migration forces and those who reject illegal immigration.
“What Hungarian people witnessed on Tuesday and Wednesday was the past. We should respectfully consider this European Parliament to be an outgoing collection,” he said, adding with a touch of irony that they could push through the Sargentini Report – the document indicting Hungary for violating the rules – by playing with the vote and violating their own regulations. That, he said, is not simply a legal question but a moral one.
“This is a clear breach of EU law, and the Hungarian Government has to act on it,” the prime minister said.
Responding to the question of whether the passing of the Sargentini Report carries any threat to Hungary, Prime Minister Orbán reassured that, just like the EP’s Tavares report in 2013, it by no means poses a danger to the country. The real issue is a much bigger one.
“Angela Merkel has said that the plan is that part of the border control should be handed over from frontier states to Brussels,” which means that “they want to take away from us the keys to the gate.”
“According to the current plan, if they couldn’t persuade Hungary to let migrants in, they will take border protection rights away from us,” PM Orbán said, adding that the next battle comes down to “who will protect Hungary’s borders.”
The future of Hungary and the future of Europe is at stake in next year’s European Parliamentary elections. In Orbán’s view “there has never been such an important EP election, and it’s possible that there will not be another one like it in our lifetime.”