Hungary will not implement the EU’s decisions on migration, the mandatory quota will not be accepted, and neither will the obligation to build “migrant ghettos” and migrant camps be accepted, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the Hungarian-Austrian-Serbian migration summit in Vienna on Friday.
Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
The Prime Minister said that
an effective Hungarian model should replace the European model that is clearly not working. Hungary will find a legal and political way to ensure that Brussels’ decisions that are deemed harmful are not implemented,
he said.
He called the situation sad and stated that Hungary must defend itself not only against illegal migrants and people smugglers, but also against Brussels, and it will do so. In Viktor Orbán’s opinion Hungarians were not only defending Hungary, but also the whole of Europe, including Austria, against illegal immigrants. Last year a total of 330,000 illegal migrants were stopped along Europe’s borders, 270,000 of them at the Hungarian-Serbian border.
Photo: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
Praising the work of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, the Hungarian Prime Minister said: without Serbia and Hungary, there would be hundreds of thousands more illegal migrants in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands than there are now.
The Hungarian Prime Minister also thanked Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for standing up for Hungary at the recent EU summit in Brussels. He pointed out that there may be solutions that are good at sea, but the same solutions will be bad on land. This approach was understood by few at the meeting, but the Austrian Chancellor made the situation clear and tried to help. It was not his fault that he failed, he added.
Mr Orbán said that the Hungarian model – which is effective – is based on a simple idea. No one is allowed to enter the country until their asylum application has been assessed. “You can only enter if the application you have submitted has received a positive response”, he added.
The Hungarian model works and should be adopted by all European countries,
he said. But this is not happening, because Brussels has adopted a regulation that imposes mandatory quotas and obliges member states to set up refugee camps, or “migrant ghettos”. And this is not only bad for Hungary, Mr Orbán said. He added that this regulation might help Italy, but it would certainly worsen Austria’s position vis-à-vis Hungary.
In response to a question from public media, Mr Orbán described Hungary as a country where there are “zero migrants”, the only migrant-free place in the whole of Europe. The prime minister cited the legal and physical protection system as the reason for this.
One part of the protection is the construction and protection of the fence, through which, although migrants sometimes “slip through” – because they are already armed and sometimes “violent actions” are launched by border guards and against the fence – the majority of them can be “caught” and are no longer allowed to enter Austria as illegal migrants. Legal protection makes entry conditional on a positive asylum procedure being concluded. Those who do not meet these conditions, are taken back to the other side of the border.
Any regulation that does not say “you must wait outside” is an invitation letter in the minds of migrants, and as long as the EU does not say that you must wait outside the borders for the asylum procedure to be completed, tens of thousands of human tragedies will be caused, Mr Orbán stressed.
However, instead of taking the decisive step, the EU wants to drag the only country that has already done so back into the territory of a failed migrant policy, the Prime Minister stressed.
MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher
The EU’s asylum system is not working and Austria, together with Hungary and Serbia, has clearly put the brakes on asylum, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said.
We are allies in the fight against illegal migration and together we will fight organized crime”,
the Chancellor said, stressing that “international cooperation is the only way to combat international organized crime effectively”. “Our countries are very seriously affected by illegal migration,” he said. “We have succeeded in putting the issue of migration on the European political agenda, and Austria has found many allies in the introduction of new regulations,” the Austrian prime minister added.
The Chancellor expressed his gratitude to Serbia for lifting the visa waiver for India and Tunisia, which has directly led to a significant reduction in the number of asylum seekers in Austria. The Chancellor also underlined the close police cooperation between the three countries, the effectiveness of which is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Austrian, Serbian and Hungarian police forces managed to apprehend a total of 700 people smugglers last year.
“Thanks to the three governments, the number of asylum applications has dropped significantly and we are ready to continue to cooperate in this way,” said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, adding that thanks to joint action, the number of asylum seekers in Austria fell by 18 percent in the first third of the year.
Featured Image: MTI/Miniszterelnöki Sajtóiroda/Benko Vivien Cher