Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said the European Union is seeking to strip Hungary of its right to protect its borders.
During his regular interview on Kossuth Radio, the prime minister said the European Parliament’s approval of the Sargentini Report was motivated by an “ultimatum” by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron to Europe under which countries on the bloc’s perimeter would relinquish some of their border control activities and hand them over to Brussels.
“The plan is that if they cannot force Hungary to allow migrants in, they will strip the country of the right to control its borders,” PM Orbán insisted.
“They want to stigmatise Hungary and they want to weaken Hungary’s resistance,” he said.
“They want to replace Hungarian border guards and soldiers who have taken an oath and for whom the homeland is paramount and send mercenaries from Brussels who will let migrants in,” he added.
PM Orbán said the Sargentini report was adopted in a procedure that “does not involve any sanctions”.
He insisted that the disciplinary process unleashed by the report’s adoption presented “no danger whatsoever” for Hungary. The next “battle”, he added, would be about “who determines whom we allow to enter the country.”
The prime minister pointed out that Europe would hold elections next May and called the current members of the European Parliament has-beens.