UN ‘making same mistake’ with migration compact as EU with quotas, says Hungarian foreign minister

The United Nations is making the same mistake with its Global Migration Compact as the European Union made with mandatory migrant settlement quotas, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in his Thursday address to a meeting of foreign ministers attending an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe meeting in Milan.

Szijjártó said the UN compact would cause even greater problems than the EU quotas because the latter only applied to Europe but the former would create disorder around the world.

The UN emphasises the positives of migration without noting the security risks, which is misleading, he added.

The migration wave of 2015 caught Europe by surprise and some 400,000 illegal migrants passed through Hungary, he said. Among the conclusions that had to be drawn, the first was that illegal migration was a dangerous process, he added. Uncontrolled migration gives an opportunity to terrorist organisations to send their fighters to previously peaceful areas. Migration processes destabilise countries of origin and transit countries alike, and they cause serious problems in destination countries, he said.

“We experienced that a large majority of migrants refused to respect local customs, regulations, culture or behavioural norms,”

Szijjártó said. As a result of mass illegal migration, the threat of terrorism in Europe is greater than ever before, as clearly demonstrated by the more than thirty attacks committed by persons with a migratory background, he said.

Hungary proposes that cooperative efforts by the OSCE should focus on preventing and stopping new waves of migration. Countries of Central Asia should be supported in the fight against terrorism and combatting extremist ideologies that terrorism stems from, he added.

At the same time, Szijjártó called on the OSCE to reject all initiatives that could result in further waves of migration, saying these posed security risks to Europe. The UN migration compact is one such initiative, he added.

The approval of the compact would result in serious security risks for the entire OSCE region,

Szijjártó said. Seven OSCE members and two partner countries have rejected it. These are the countries that give priority to the security of their own citizens, he added. He called on the other OSCE members to think twice about whether they indeed wanted to spend their taxpayers’ money on campaigns claiming the beneficial effects of migration and the training of migrants. They should also question whether they indeed believe that migrants should get the same services as taxpayers in the given country and whether sharing information with the immigration authorities gathered about migrants should indeed be banned, he added.

Source: mti