Mayors support government’s anti-quota stance

Budapest, March 12 (MTI) – Hungarian mayors adopted a political statement in which they condemn the European Union’s plans for introduction mandatory migrant quotas, at a conference on Saturday.

Addressing the event organised by the Association of County Seats (MJVSZ), Interior Minister Sándor Pintér said “mass migration must be stopped along the external borders of the European Union and only real refugees should be allowed through”. Pintér said some 70 percent of people arriving to Hungary were illegal entrants. He criticised the EU’s proposals for distributing 160,000 migrants among member states and the one in which the EU agrees to accept the same number of migrants that Turkey had done.

István Tarlós, mayor of Budapest in the colours of ruling Fidesz, said that at its next meeting the Budapest Municipal Assembly will declare to join the government officially in its anti-quota stance. Tarlós said refugees in need must be helped in their homelands. “We don’t want to endanger or sacrifice what is our own,” he said.

Károly Szita, the mayor of Kaposvar in southwestern Hungary and a Fidesz delegate, said 913 Hungarian localities had voiced opposition to the mandatory resettlements, which they deemed “unlawful, unreasonable and dangerous”.

Photo: MTI

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters