Hungary has said it's about time Brussels grasped the facts and handled illegal immigration properly.
The EU is currently in need of reform, and “to deny this would be stupid," Péter Szijjártó, minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade said, highlighting that one of the most important steps is that existing, jointly adopted regulations must be adhered to, and one such regulation is the protection of external borders, which Hungary is adhering to, and it is also thanks to Hungary that there are fewer illegal immigrants arriving in Europe today.
Hungary will not change its immigration policy and will not allow Brussels to remove further spheres of competence from member states and accordingly “push the continent towards uncertainty," the minister said, adding that “it is time for facts to be more important in Brussels than opinions (…) and for Brussels to also finally regard illegal immigration as its most important challenge and handle it accordingly.”
Minister Szijjártó issued the statement in repsonse to EU Commissioner for Enlargement and Austrian People’s Party Vice-President Johannes Hahn comments in which he voiced harsh criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Europe policy.
Hahn said that PM Orbán’s politics sometimes bears populists traits, which is ultimately detrimental to European values. According to Hahn, the message of the weekend’s meeting of the European People’s Party is that the Hungarian prime minister must permanently change his behavior, otherwise he must indeed expect to have to face the appropriate consequences.
Hahn said that in Rome as a Head of Government Viktor Orbán voted in favor of the further strengthening of the EU, parallel to which he launched a “Let’s Stop Brussels” referendum in Hungary, pointing out the fact that the two are contradictory, to which we can also add the procedure against the Central European University (CEU).
In reaction to Hahn’s statements, the minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade stressed that PM Orbán stated both in the European Parliament and at the summit of the EPP that Hungary is prepared to discuss disputed issues, but is "not prepared to endure the scornful remakrs from Brussels".
“We expect the Hungarians to be given the respect they have a right to and we draw the attention of the Brussels bureaucrats to the fact that while they are centered on Hungary, the country is defending the borders of the European Union from illegal immigration," the minister said.