EU success dependent on migration policy U-turn, says Hungarian FM Szijjártó

The European Union will not be successful on the global stage unless it makes a U-turn on its migration policy, Hungary’s foreign minister said in Luxembourg on Monday, arguing that stopping the inflow of migrants was crucial to ensuring Europe’s security and competitiveness.

Addressing a news conference after a meeting with his EU counterparts, Péter Szijjártó said the talks focused mainly on how to make the bloc’s common foreign and security policy more effective as well as on the EU’s global strategy.

As regards the latter, Szijjártó said the EU should focus its efforts not on managing the process of migration but rather on stopping it.

The EU must not give in to any kind of pressure that leads to the continent getting flooded with immigrants, he said.

The minister also said the bloc was taking too long to sign free trade deals with a number of important partners, adding that this was having a negative effect on its competitiveness. He said the approval of “socialist-type economic strategies” like proposals on tax harmonisation and the communitisation of taxation would also hamper the improvement of the EU’s competitiveness.