The foreign minister has highlighted how Hungary and Poland are closely cooperating in preventing some western European states from imposing on the European Union the “flawed and dangerous” migration policy whose consequences have been felt since 2015.
Following talks with his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau in Karpacz, Poland, Péter Szijjártó said the situation in Afghanistan keeps deteriorating, with reports on a forthcoming civil war emerging but half of the population of that country had lived on welfare even before the Islamist Taliban rebels came to power.
“The western European statements that can be interpreted as invitations to all Afghans are particularly irresponsible,” Minister Szijjártó said.
Europe is exposed to migratory pressures not only from Africa and the Middle East, but even from the east, through Belarus, he said, adding that another wave from Afghanistan would entail “incalculable consequences”, he said.
Minister Szijjártó said Hungary and Poland’s migration policies “are based on common sense”, recalling that Hungary had built a fence along its southern border in 2015, and Poland is doing the same along its eastern border. The two governments are not only talking about the need to help where needs arise, the minister said, citing a Hungarian-Polish project to grant one million euros’ worth of aid to Jordanian hospitals caring for Syrian refugees.
Minister Szijjártó qualified Western Europe’s current migration policy as a “huge threat” to European security and identity, adding that a massive wave of refugees would increase the risk of the spread of the coronavirus.