Orbán: The EU wants to strip Hungary of right to control border

The European Union is seeking to strip Hungary of its right to protect its borders, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview to public Kossuth Radio on Friday.

Concerning the Sargentini report the European Parliament approved on Wednesday, PM Orbán said it was motivated by an “ultimatum” by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron to Europe under which countries on the bloc’s perimeter would relinquish some of their border control activities and hand them over to Brussels.

“The plan is that if they cannot force Hungary to allow migrants in, they will strip the country of the right to control its borders,” Orbán insisted.

“They want to stigmatise Hungary and they want to weaken Hungary’s resistance,” he said. “They want to replace Hungarian border guards and soldiers who have taken an oath and for whom the homeland is paramount and send mercenaries from Brussels who will let migrants in,” Orbán said.

Orbán said the Sargentini report was adopted in a procedure which “does not involve any sanctions”. He insisted that the disciplinary process unleashed by the report’s adoption presented “no danger whatsoever” for Hungary.

The next “battle”, he added, would be about “who determines whom we allow entering the country”.

Noting that Europe would hold elections next May, Orbán called the current members of the European Parliament has-beens.

The current EP has a “clear pro-migrant” majority whose mission “is to change the composition of the continent and replace its population”, Orbán said. He said certain EP politicians “hate all those who oppose their plans and organise resistance”.

Orbán insisted that the Hungarian government had “responded to all claims” in the Sargentini report. He said 19 of those claims concerned contested procedures underway, while 13 concerned past procedures and 37 contained “factual mistakes”.