EU Summit – Orbán: Hungary not to become immigrant country

The Visegrad Group succeeded in getting its proposal accepted at the current European Union summit and Hungary will not become an immigrant country, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a video message posted on his Facebook page early on Friday.

There was a threat that migrants from refugee camps would be distributed among European countries, Orbán said.

“We have managed to thwart this proposal and have our proposal accepted,” he added.

The Visegrad proposal clearly stated that nobody can be transferred from refugee camps to another country without the latter’s consent, he added.

As a result, Hungary will not become an immigrant country. It will remain a country of Hungarians, Orbán said.

A two-day EU summit started in Brussels on Thursday where

European Union heads of state and government are focussing on the common migrant and refugee policies, the EU’s next financial framework as well as economic and trade issues.

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Donald Tusk

European Council President Donald Tusk has said in a tweet that EU leaders reached an agreement on a joint statement closing their talks on Thursday that included the issue of handling migration.

According to the statement, centres for the relocation and resettlement of migrants would be set up on a voluntary basis within the EU.

Socialists

Gábor Harangozó, a board member of the opposition Socialists, said on Friday that the agreement reached on Thursday indicated the European countries’ will to make joint efforts for handling the migrant issue rather than acting individually, on the national level. This approach, he said, goes against Viktor Orbán’s policy.

“This is a major success for Europe,… which, I strongly believe, is at the same time a defeat for Viktor Orbán,” Harangozó told reporters.

LMP

Green LMP’s deputy group leader Márta Demeter told a press conference that the summit took important decisions “but relatively small steps, compared to the weight of the problem”. She welcomed that participants had reached agreements in certain areas, Demeter said, and added that

the closing agreement of the summit is another proof that quotas are not on the agenda.

Photo: MTI/EPA/Nicolas Lambert

Source: MTI