Government: Hungary will not allow the EU to set up “migrant ghettos”

The EU’s revived plan of setting up “migrant ghettos” goes against the will of the Hungarian people and Hungary’s constitutional system, Zoltán Kovács, the state secretary for international relations at the Prime Minister’s Office, told public broadcaster Kossuth Radio on Sunday.

He noted that a proposal put forward by Brussels at the peak of a migration wave in 2015 had now been revisited. “Instead of stopping migration, the European Commission now wants to manage it, and it has given rise to a new terminology of migrant ghettos. It means setting up large camps somewhere along the southern borders where Hungary would be required to provide for the migrants until their asylum applications are processed. Migrants whose applications have not been processed over the course of 12 weeks will have to be allowed to travel on,” said Kovács.

The Hungarian government continues to firmly oppose the EU’s migrant redistribution quotas, respecting the result of a national consultation survey and a referendum held on the matter, and the provisions of Hungary’s fundamental law, he said. Asked whether Hungary and Poland could prevent the implementation of the plan, Kovács said decisions on migration can only be taken “in a unanimous vote with a full consensus”.

In connection with the EU’s requirement of additional payments to the common budget by member states, the state secretary said “it has become obvious that the 2021-2027 financial framework has become questionable just in the matter of two years and now the question is whether the community is heading towards bankruptcy”.