FM: Hungary to quit UN talks if draft stays ‘pro-migration’

Hungary will start proceedings to quit talks in the United Nations on the UN’s migration package unless “there is a positive shift, towards Hungary’s position”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday.

The government has instructed the foreign minister to review the first draft of the package, to be published on February 5, and start the procedure to quit the talks if the document is “as pro-migration” as the 2016 declaration and the UN secretary-general’s recent statement which served as its basis, Szijjártó said.

The minister insisted that the package is scheduled to be adopted at the end of this year, and the inter-governmental negotiations have not even started but the secretary-general “has already announced the result”.

Szijjártó also insisted that the “plan” of US financier George Soros concerning migration did exist “as a clear concept” and “there seems a parallel” with the UN chief’s recent statement.

The foreign minister said that both the stance of the UN declaration and of the secretary-general’s statement were in conflict with Hungary’s position and interests because they suggested that “migration is good and unavoidable”.

According to the Hungarian government, migration is “not a positive trend”; it “poses serious security risks and can be halted”. Both the declaration and the statement suggest that immigration bureaucracy should be simplified, which would give further incentive to people mulling to leave their homeland, while it would also “loosen up” the national migration policies, Szijjártó argued. According to the UN, countries “not impacted by migration” should also launch programmes to accommodate migrants, which, rather than easing the problem, would make the challenge “even more serious”, he added.

Furthermore, Szijjártó said the declaration suggests “reducing the criminalisation” of illegal entry, whereas, he insisted, it was “indeed a crime”, while “the ability to protect the border is one of the most important aspects of statehood, an important component of sovereignty.” The declaration seeks to make the “right to migration appear as a fundamental human right as well as to remove the difference between legal and illegal migration, which is unacceptable,” Szijjártó said.

Source: MTI