Orbán cabinet: Hungary rejects implementation of EU’s pact on migration and asylum
The European Union has not changed its pro-migration position at all, and wants to make the greatest possible progress in the implementation of the pact on migration and asylum, the interior ministry state secretary said on Friday, adding that Hungary rejected that stance.
Bence Rétvári told the Hungarian press after a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg that the 40-year-old Schengen Area had never been in such poor condition as currently. Europe without internal borders is further away now than at any time in the past 40 years, thanks to mistaken migration policies, he added.
No matter what happens in Europe and what security risks and costs result from illegal migration, the European Commission is continuing to force the implementation of the migration pact, he said.
“We all know that this will never work and it will never be realised. All sensibly thinking people know this,” he said, adding that despite this, the EC continued to force the implementation of the migration pact and the relocation of migrants in line with quotas.
He said Hungary had not given up its national plan concerning the implementation of the pact on migration and asylum, adding the “we will not carry out resettlements”.
Rétvári said the EC had published its plan to set up a 3 billion euro fund to help the implementation of the pact on migration and asylum.
“When economic growth is slowing down throughout Europe and living conditions worsen in all European countries, the EU will spend its money amounting to 3 billion euros on offering financial help to member states for the implementation of the migration pact. Rétvári called it “outrageous and an extremely misguided decision” that the EC was not spending the 3 billion euros on helping European families and the European economy, but on promoting the migration pact. “The EC should serve the European people and not the migrants and the war,” he added.
He said it went against common sense and the position of Hungary that the EC wanted to monitor if member states returned migrants at the border and if they offered help to the submission of asylum requests. “If member states say that someone had crossed the border illegally and they should go back, then the EU could declare [the decision] unlawful. It will punish any country that stops and turns back illegal migrants instead of escorting them to migrant ghettos and helping them fill out asylum requests,” Rétvári said. The EC will also monitor if there are organisations offering legal help, he added. “This is completely unrealistic and Hungary rejects it,” he added.
Rétvári said it was obvious that the EU was continuing its misguided policies and the EC was characterised by “full blindness” when it came to migration.
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