Hungary's anti-migration PM Viktor Orban has said that if he copied Germany's migration policy he would be fired. Orban has also called for a revamped European Commission with a fresh approach to migration.
Image: Reuters/A. Schmidt
Advertisement
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Germany's Bild newspaper in an interview published on Friday that "if I made a refugee policy like your chancellor, people would chase me out of office the same day,"
Orban was referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who in 2015 opened up Germany's borders as Europe was confronted with the largest refugee crisis it had seen in years, famously declaring "Wir schaffen das" or "We can do this."
Orban, one of the strongest opponents of the European Union's migration policy, said the issue is "not a common task of the EU. This is a national matter of each individual member state. Since 2015, attempts have been made to make this a joint task — and have failed."
Hungary, along with Poland, is notable in its refusal to accept migrants from Italy and Greece, contrary to an EU deal struck in the height of the migrant crisis. The 2015 agreement was meant to share migrants amongst EU member states. Merkel has repeatedly criticized Hungary for not complying with the EU scheme.
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
6 images1 | 6
New European Commission
In a separate interview on Friday, Orban called for a new European Commission with a fresh approach to migration. Countries protecting their borders "should not be punished," he told Hungarian state radio, concerning Hungary's referral to the EU Court of Justice by the European Commission over its non-compliance with EU law.
"We need a Commission after the European elections which does not punish those countries that protect their borders like Hungary," Orban said, suggesting that the EU executive should rather punish those who let in millions of migrants into Europe in violation of EU rules.
Orban's government famously built a razor-wire fence along Hungary's border with Serbia in 2015 after hundreds of thousands of migrants passed along the "Balkan route" leading from Greece through Macedonia and Serbia to Croatia or Hungary.
More recently, migrants have headed to Croatia through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro instead of along the Balkan route. Orban, who was in Montenegro for a state visit on Tuesday, said that the small Balkan nation should remain closed for people trying to reach Western Europe. Orban even offered help Montenegro with anti-migrant border patrols.
Orban's right-wing nationalist Fidesz party has a strong lead in opinion polls after it won national elections in April with a landslide, and he was re-elected for a third consecutive term.
A Syrian migrant with a boy on the Serbian side of the border with Hungary (2015) Image: Reuters/B. Szabo
