A leading official has said the Sargentini Report is revenge against Hungary for rejecting illegal immigration.
Tamás Menczer, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s minister of state for Communication and Hungary’s International Image, said the report contains lies, and also dredges up old issues that have long been resolved.
Speaking on Kossuth Radio’s “180 Minutes” program, Menczer said the European Union should focus its efforts on important issues and challenges like Brexit, the armed conflict in Ukraine, economic problems, energy issues and illegal immigration. “The European Union should be handling these issues instead of pestering a member state for absolutely no reason,” he said.
Menczer added that the current European Commission and European Parliament do not have a mandate to find Hungary guilty in view of the fact that the Hungarian government is representing the interests and opinion of the Hungarian people with relation to immigration.
“The European Commission and European Parliament should be representing the people of Europe, and so it is strange that they wish to punish Hungary and the Hungarian government that are doing exactly that in their stead,” Menczer said.
“The Hungarian government believes that the source of power are the people, but the view that the people should be represented is no longer fully shared on various EU forums. Accordingly, it is the government’s expectation that the European Commission and European Parliament should not make decisions on decisive issues in view of the fact that there will be elections next spring and the people will decide then what kind of future they would like for Europe,” Menczer explained.
He also pointed out that European politicians have split into two camps. “The pro-immigration group led by French President Emanuel Macron, which calls itself progressive, is so ‘modern’ as to regard European and Christian culture as part of the past, and believes Europe has come to the end of its history and further progress can only be achieved by establishing mixed societies using illegal immigrants,” he said.
“In contrast, the group led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini wants to stop migration and preserve Europe for the Europeans,” he added.