Hungary rejects the proposed EU migration and asylum pact’s crisis regulation, Bence Rétvári, state secretary of the interior ministry, said on Thursday, reasoning that the regulation would “open a new door” to mass illegal migration to Europe.
Rétvári told a council meeting on the reform of the EU’s migration and asylum package that the regulations currently under discussion if adopted, would define Europe’s future, security, economic competitiveness and the composition of its population in the long term. “So Hungary rejects this new pro-migration proposal by Brussels,” he said. Hungary argues that consensus-based decision-making is important on strategic issues such as the migration pact, Rétvári said. Qualified majority decisions would bypass individual member states, which in turn would still have to tackle crisis situations. Hungary, he noted, has stopped 135,000 illegal migrants at its southern border so far this year, more than during the entire year two years ago. The new pact would be “a migrant magnet”, he said, arguing that it did not tackle the problem of asylum and would fail to curb illegal migration.