The “blindness” of Hungary’s critics could lead to the disappearance of European civilisation, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said. Szijjártó responded to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR and the Council of Europe urging Hungary “to refrain from policies and practices that promote intolerance, fear and fuel xenophobia against refugees and migrants.” He said Hungary did not promote intolerance but “talked about realities”.
In response to the call that the Hungarian leadership should “adopt the true spirit of humanity”, Szijjártó said Hungary has provided and will continue to provide shelter for those who are eligible for it. “However, it cannot accommodate tens or hundreds of thousands of economic migrants.” The minister denied that Hungary was suggesting that migrants were criminals or terrorists. “We never said that all migrants are terrorists. We only said that the uncontrolled inflow of illegal migrants increases the threat of terror in Europe”, he said. Hungary’s task is not to help several million or tens of millions of migrants to start a new life in Europe but to help them get back their old lives and live in humane conditions near their home until the crisis is over, the minister said.
Hungary’s foreign minister also responded to comments the Austrian chancellor made to Austrian public service television channel ORF and the daily Österreich about the Visegrád Four countries’ proposed solutions to Europe’s migrant crisis. “Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann fails to see that allowing hundreds of thousands or millions of people to enter Europe unchecked is not an act of solidarity but an act of stupidity,” Péter Szijjártó said.
Austria’s Socialist chancellor Werner Faymann told daily Österreich that while the “coalition of the willing” seeks to find a solution to the crisis, the Visegrád Four countries have dismissed all of their proposals. The chancellor told ORF that in the future, migrants should be registered in external reception centres and people eligible for asylum should be distributed among EU member states. This, however, will only work if every member state adopts the same migrant registration procedures.
Szijjártó responded by saying that real solidarity means helping people fleeing conflict take refuge somewhere close to their homes in humane conditions, so that when the conflict ends they can return to their home countries. Stupidity, on the other hand, is admitting hundreds of thousands or millions of people into Europe when everyone can see that “neither the European people nor the migrants have got what they wanted”. Szijjártó said that “as usual”, the Austrian chancellor is “lying about Hungary” and trying to bring even more migrants into Europe and distribute them by blackmailing EU member states.
via hungarymatters.hu and MTI