The EU’s mandatory migrant quota measure forces migrants on Europe, Hungary and the Hungarian people and sends an invitation to millions more, the minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office said at today’s Government Info session.
All responsible governments in Central Europe, “where societies are still free from all the consequences of migration,” must do everything in their power to ensure that “this completely senseless and insane regulation” does not enter into force, he said, noting that the Hungarian prime minister did not support the adoption of a joint declaration at the EU summit on the subject.
The draft legislation includes a requirement that Hungary should process at least 10,000 refugee applications a year. This means that reception camps would have to be set up, which would be tantamount to dismantling the current border fence.
Speaking about the amendment to the EU budget, he said that it would require unanimous approval, so there is no realistic chance of the planned modification being adopted.
Gulyás said that the additional EUR 98.5 billion Brussels is asking for from Member States is 15 times the total annual Hungarian social security contributions and roughly the amount of the entire annual Hungarian state budget. Not even Austria or Germany want to take on such a burden, he pointed out. It must be clarified what Brussels has spent the previously approved budget on, since, for instance, Poland and Hungary have not been given a single penny. Moreover, the countries that have received money from the recovery fund complain that payments are slow, he said.
What is known is that EUR 50 billion of these extra payments would go to Ukraine, EUR 1.5 billion would be used to pay Brussels bureaucrats more, and an undisclosed sum would go toward financing interest payments and migrants. Meanwhile, zero has been allocated to border protection. Hungary will not contribute to such a budget, the minister underlined.
Referring to the recommendations made to Hungary in the European Semester, he stated that both cutting family allowances and abolishing public utility price cuts are completely out of the question.
Finally, Gulyás called on Hungarian left-wing MEPs not to block the teachers’ pay raise. He said that the government was adamant about a rapid and substantial pay increase, a significant part of which would be covered by the Hungarian budget, but the extent and speed of this would depend on EU funding. He, therefore, called on Hungarian left-wing MEPs and their political groups not to block access to EU funds and to call on the Commission to allow Hungary to enact a pay increase starting this September, at the latest, in line with the EU’s development goals.