Hungary will not sign the UN's first compact on global migration, after all UN member nations except the US approved the draft to be signed in December. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a tough stance on migration.
Image: picture-alliance/Zumapress/P. Hackett
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Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on Wednesday described the newly agreed UN global migration compact a "threat to the world" which went against his country's interests.
The draft for the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration took 18 months to draw up and was approved last Friday by 191 UN member nations except the United States, which pulled out last year saying it was "inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies."
The compact aims to create a global framework for managing migration: a "non-legally binding, cooperative framework" to encourage "international cooperation among all relevant actors on migration, acknowledging that no state can address migration alone, and upholds the sovereignty of states and their obligations under international law."
The Hungarian border fence at TompaImage: Getty Images/AFP/A. Kisbenedek
"This document is entirely against Hungary's security interests," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a cabinet meeting in Budapest.
"This pact poses a threat to the world from the aspect that it could inspire millions [of migrants]," he added.
Szijjarto described the compact as a measure which was "extreme, biased and facilitates migration."
"Its main premise is that migration is a good and inevitable phenomenon," the minister said. "We consider migration a bad process, which has extremely serious security implications."
Hungary will no longer attend the signing of the final UN document, which is due to take place at a ceremony in Morocco in December.
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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Hungarian anti-migrant stance
Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a tough position on migration, which has caused tension with the European Union but resonated with Hungarian voters, as he argues that irregular immigration threatens European stability.
Orban disagrees with the quota-based distribution of refugees within the EU. In 2015 he ordered fences to be built along Hungary's borders with Serbia and Croatia to keep out migrants traveling along the Balkan route into northern Europe.
Hungarian soldiers at the Tompa border stationImage: Getty Images/AFP/A. Kisbenedek
