EP election – Orbán encourages ‘anti-migration’ voters to participate

All “pro-migration” voters will turn up at the ballots for the European parliamentary election, “so let us be there, too”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told commercial Hir TV on Friday, ahead of Sunday’s vote.

Arguing that “the Left is going ahead with its campaign with huge forces all over Europe”, Orbán called on “everybody in Hungary” to cast their ballot. Warning that the campaign is not over yet, he said it would be “disrespectful” to consider the election as decided because “chances never realise themselves; we must realise them”.

Migration and politicians’ approach to it have “changed everything” in Europe since the last EP election, Orbán said.

The question in focus is whether “pro- or anti-migration” politicians will be at the helm or “whether Europe stays Europe for the Europeans”, he added. Orbán insisted that if he receives “a strong authorisation” from voters “clearly expressing their wish that the EU should have no pro-migration leaders” he would have better chances of promoting that wish in the European Council.

A large part of Europeans now share Hungary’s position and thinks that “Europe should belong to the Europeans, public security should be maintained, terrorism should be shut out, nobody should enter these countries without permit, and each European country should stay as its culture has shaped it”.

“A strong, violent, external invasion should not be let to change the framework of our life,” he said.

Immigration “would not only create a cultural problem” and “destroy public security” but undermine Hungary’s economy, too, Orbán said. In the next EU budget “the moneys of European taxpayers should not be spent on immigration but for example on family assistance and development,” he added.

Referring to ethnic Hungarian communities abroad, Orbán called on Hungarians in Romania to support RMDSZ and Hungarians in Slovakia to vote for the MKP party.

Touching upon the recent case of Heinz-Christian Strache, former vice-chancellor of Austria, Orbán said that “the first thing the successors to anti-migration Freedom Party ministers did was to increase the remuneration for migrants”. He went on to say that Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is “under pro-migration pressure” and “many in and outside seek to direct the Austrian government back into the flock of pro-migration governments”.

Concerning German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Orbán said that in spite of “disputes over a number of important issues” he would “always pay to her respects greater than obligatory” because “the Germans have elected her, because she is a lady and she has had many achievements”.

Asked about the relationship between his Fidesz party and the European People’s Party, Orbán said that in light of the outcome of the upcoming election “it will have to be determined which direction the group should take”. He insisted that “those are still in majority who want to tie the EPP to Europe’s pro-migration left”. “This is tragic because that road leads nowhere”. He added that he saw “no substantive difference” between the spitzenkandidats of the EPP and of the Socialists because “they are saying the same in the same Brussels blah-blah language”.

The EPP needs “a turn to the right”, Orbán said. Should the EPP “turn into a direction which is in conflict with the culture and objectives of the Hungarians, we will not jump into the abyss to follow them but take a different path,” he said.

Orbán said he did not envisage a stable political structure in the EU after the election; “cooperation will work on a case by case basis rather than under large, comprehensive agreements”.

Concerning domestic affairs, Orbán suggested that the public would “replace the opposition” rather than the government.

Answering a question concerning Russia’s influence, Orbán said that “we don’t suffer from that; what we suffer from is Soros’s influencing”. “The interference of that global, liberal mafia is what seems illegitimate”, Orbán said. “Players outside Hungary, manipulating huge funds, seek to wage a campaign and interfere with the Hungarian elections,” he said.

Touching upon the freedom of the media, Orbán said that while in western countries some 85 percent of the media could be liberal leaving just 15 percent for the conservative Christian media, in Hungary “the ratio could be half-half”. We could say that “Hungary has a full freedom of the media, while that freedom is limited in the West”.

Source: MTI