Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said “we are getting closer to a sensible migration policy in Europe”, following the Visegrad Group (V4) summit in Warsaw.
Accordting to MTI, the prime minister said Hungary has closed all legal loopholes concerning migration and prepared itself for the possible failure of the migration deal between the EU and Turkey.
“We are able to halt any wave of migration, no matter its size,” PM Orbán said. Hungary has also made the first steps to eliminate the “migrant business," he added. “A good number of NGOs obviously consider the migrant issue a business matter. For this reason, we will take steps to make their operation fully transparent,” he said.
PM Orbán insisted that Hungary's new asylum laws served to protect EU citizens. The prime minister said views that link the issue of migration with the reimbursement of EU monies are illegitimate. “Let’s not allow them to intimidate us,” he added, urging his V4 partners to stand by their “sensible” migration policies.
PM Orbán said the V4 had demonstrated that they shared a serious joint position on the future of Europe. The recent summit in Rome is not the end of the debate on the bloc’s future, but rather the entry point into its next phase that will be about ironing out the details, he said. Europe now had a general declaration on its future, while the European Commission is preparing to put forward five packages of proposed legislation, he added. He urged his V4 colleagues to react swiftly to each package.
The prime minister said he expects the “centre of gravity” of European development to gradually shift from western to central Europe. “If Europe has a future, then it is primarily in central Europe,” the PM said, arguing that western Europe had “baggage” which it would have a hard time dealing with. He said he expected that in a matter of years, the V4 would be referred to as “Europe’s strongest engine of growth”.