Hungary and Austria praise anti-immigrant cooperation
May 6, 2019
If the Hungarian prime minister and Austrian vice chancellor get their way, anti-migration forces will emerge as victors in the upcoming European Parliament elections.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/A. Kisbenedek
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he wanted the center-right European People's Party (EPP) bloc in the European Parliament to cooperate with euroskeptic, nationalist parties, taking Austria as an example.
"If in Austria the governing center-right party can cooperate with the patriotic right-wing party, then why can't this happen at the European level too?" Orban said during a visit from Austrian Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache.
Strache's Freedom Party (FPÖ)Strache's Freedom Party (FPÖ), which was started in the 1950s by former Nazis, is the junior coalition partner to Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservative People's Party (ÖVP).
Orban said that the previous left-wing administration in Vienna had "done everything" to stop Hungary from building a border fence during the migration wave of 2015, and said he wished that every nation in the EU would do a similar about-face on immigration.
The meeting came just days after Strache was condemned for using the racist phrase "population replacement" to refer to non-white immigration.
Both leaders used the opportunity to praise other right-wing parties across Europe and condemn leftists as "intolerant."
"Deputy Chancellor Strache and the FPÖ were necessary for Austria to become opposed to immigration," said Orban, according to his communications chief, Zoltan Kovacs.
Viktor Orban's most controversial migration comments
Hungary's right-wing prime minister has been one of Europe's leading voices against migration into the EU. Unafraid of controversy, he has described migration as an "invasion" and migrants as a "poison."
Image: Reuters/B. Szabo
'Muslim invaders'
"We don't see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders," Orban said in a recent interview with German daily Bild newspaper. The 54-year-old prime minister of Hungary added: "We believe that a large number of Muslims inevitably leads to parallel societies, because Christian and Muslim society will never unite." Multiculturalism, he said, "is only an illusion."
Image: Reuters/F. Lenoir
'You wanted the migrants, we didn't'
When asked by Bild whether it was fair for Germany to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants while Hungary accepted none, Orban responded: "The difference is, you wanted the migrants, and we didn't." Migration, he said, threatens the "sovereignty and cultural identity" of Hungary.
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
'Migration is poison'
It was not the first time the Hungarian leader has framed migration as a problem for his country. In 2016, he said that Hungary "does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future." He added: "for us migration is not a solution but a problem ... not medicine but a poison, we don’t need it and won’t swallow it.”
Image: picture alliance/dpa/AP Photo/P. Gorondi
'Importing homophobia'
Orban has repeatedly criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her decision to allow over a million migrants into Germany in the summer of 2015. Orban told Bild in early 2016: "If you take masses of non-registered immigrants from the Middle East into your country, you are importing terrorism, crime, anti-Semitism, and homophobia."
Image: Reuters/L. Balogh
'All terrorists are basically migrants'
Orban has also repeatedly criticized the EU for trying to get member states to share refugees based on national quotas. In a 2015 interview with POLITICO, he suggested the bloc's leaders instead focus more on strengthening the EU's external border. In the same interview, he said: "Of course it’s not accepted, but the factual point is that all the terrorists are basically migrants."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Bozon
'Parallel societies'
Orban has found allies in other right-wing governments in eastern Europe such as Poland that also oppose the EU's refugee policies. In an interview with Spanish TV channel Intereconomia in 2015, Orban raised fears about integrating Muslim migrants in the EU when he said: "What sort of Europe do we want to have? Parallel societies? Muslim communities living together with the Christian community?"
Image: Reuters/K. Pempel
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Austria has introduced a number of draconian measures aimed at restricting non-white immigration since Kurz took office in 2017, such as seizing migrants' phones and valuables at the border, and has refused to sign the UN's Global Compact for Migration. Kurz has also supported Orban's stauch opposition to plans to more evenly distribute migrants throughout the EU.
Both Strache and Orban praised their ethno-nationalist counterparts in Italy's League party, as well as Poland's Law and Justice (PiS) party. When asked where they would draw the line when cooperating with other right-wing groups, Strache said "we categorically reject all anti-Semites and fascists."
