State Secretary Bence Rétvári said the European Union’s draft crisis regulation adopted earlier this week is not about protecting the borders but about the further settlement of illegal migrants.
Rétvári told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Sunday that while the proposal discussed at the meeting of EU interior ministers is formally called crisis regulation, it is actually another “migrant magnet” that was pushed through in Brussels. He said the migration pact was passed by the Council of the European Union early in the summer, bypassing qualified decision-making, without striving for consensus, and until now, only one part was missing, the so-called crisis regulation. Explaining the content of the supplementary decision, Rétvári said that in the event that tens of thousands of migrants suddenly appear somewhere, Brussels will have the right to decide how many migrants should be taken by member states from the country in crisis. This is an extraordinary mandatory quota, made on the basis of an ad hoc decision, and it does not contain any guarantees, the concept of the crisis situation is not defined, nor is the proportion in which the migrants should be distributed, he said. He also noted that the obligation cannot be converted into a fine, the designated countries would have to take over these migrants on a mandatory basis. Rétvári confirmed that Hungary’s position remains that the external borders must be protected and asylum application procedures must be conducted outside of the external borders of the EU. He said the reason why the EU wanted to adopt this migration regulation at such a rapid pace was because the European parliamentary elections are approaching, and “they fear that with the advance of the populists in the European institutions, it will no longer be so easy to find support for migration”.