Foreign press on Hungary – Romanian, Serbian, Polish, French, German, Austrian, British and Belgian papers on the migrant crisis

The editor of the Polish conservative newspaper WSieci, Lukasz Warzecha believes in his commentary published on the news portal of the paper that Hungarians should not be “lashed out” for what they did in the migrant case, in fact thank goes to them. He explained: Hungary, which is much smaller than Poland,  “undertook an enormous burden within its capabilities”, while endeavoring to comply with the proper procedures. Wazecha says the Hungarian closing of borders “is not cruelty, but the protection of Europe from the invasion”. The author believes the migrant crisis was provoked by the “irresponsible policy” of “the countries accepting migrants for years, providing them a generous support and asking from them nothing”, gazdasagportal.hu said.

According to the editorial article of the British conservative newspaper The Daily Telegraph, Hungary is just reacting by its steps taken to protect the European Union’s external borders that the EU failed in the management of mass immigration.

Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission said last week that the EU should make more efforts to protect its external borders. Hungary – as the only member state – just fulfilled this wish by constructing the border fence, and now EU leaders chastise the Hungarian government because of it.

On the Tuesday’s edition of the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, the commentary of Andreas Molzer has been published with the title Europe’s scapegoat: Viktor Orban is right. According to the author, the Prime Minister can feel himself justified by the German procedure. He thinks the Hungarian head of government adopted measures which were urged by the German Minister of Interior as well before the German border control, such as the strengthening of the external borders of the EU and the registration of asylum-seekers., gazdasagportal.hu said.

The online edition of the German conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published a criticism about a television debate where Minister Zoltan Balog was the guest. Michael Hanfeld wrote the criticism called The tone is sharpening, emphasizing that Hungary representatives have a hard time in German talk programs nowadays, because all participants of the programs attack them, in the analyzed talk show, even the moderator joined the attackers. The author wrote about the national public television ARD’s late Wednesday program called Anne Will: the Hungarian government’s representatives are only invited to make them “scapegoats”.

Le Soir, a left-wing liberal newspaper in Brussels wrote that the European Christian democracy defends Orban. According to the article the Hungarian Prime Minister has been the subject of widespread criticism because of the measures taken in the refugee case, but there are barely voices against Viktor Orban can be barely heard in the party family of Fidesz, the European People’s Party.

In the blog section of the Romanian liberal Adevarul, Teodor Raileanu sharply criticized both the Hungarian and the Romanian Prime Ministers. The authors thinks fence building is a pointless, extreme solution in a transit country. He declared the explanation of Orban, according to which he does not want Hungary’s ethnic-religious composition to change, a “Nazi” position. The author thinks Victor Ponta incites tensions in order to gain votes, gazdasagportal.hu wrote.

The other author of Adevarul, Marius Dorin Lulea thinks Ponta has no moral foundation to lecture Hungary because of the closure of the border, all the more so this is the “end of the romance”, the violent migrants violated the country’s sovereignty.

In the conservative Romania Libera, Sabina Fati criticized the Budapest and Bucharest cabinets for the controversy between the two countries.

The Serbian newspapers dealt with special attention to the clashes at Horgos-Roszke. Daily newspaper Kurir called it war, while Vecernje Novosti wrote that Serbian police protected the migrants. Belgrade newspaper Politika thinks there is a lot of misinformation, so the migrants commute between the two border crossings hoping that one of them will be opened.

TheFrench left-liberal newspaper Le Monde published a commentary with the title Viktor Orban created a schism within the European Union. According to it the migrant crisis made the breakline clear between the political Christianity represented by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the evangelical Christianity, which turns to the poor, announced by Pope Francis. Angela Merkel also represents the latter one, Le Monde wrote.

based on the article of gazdasagportal.hu
translated by BA

Photo: MTI

Source: http://gazdasagportal.hu