Hungarian FM: Hungary against UN migration package unless the 12 proposals get incorporated

Hungary will continue to resolutely go against the United Nations’ planned global migration package unless each of the 12 proposals submitted by the government gets incorporated in it, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said at a meeting with Miroslav Lajcak, the president of the UN general assembly and the foreign minister of Slovakia, on Wednesday.

Szijjártó told Lajcak that Hungary’s position opposes completely to the basic approach of the migration package. Hungary disagrees with the assumption that migration is a good and unstoppable trend and believes the opposite.

“We believe that migration is bad, which has been in fact proven by experiences in Europe over the past two and a half years,” he said.

With the help of the Visegrád Group, including Slovakia, Hungary has proven that migration can be stopped, he added.

“These facts also show that the basic assumption about global migration is a lie because migration is not good but dangerous and it is not unstoppable but possible to stop,” Szijjártó said.

At the upcoming intergovernmental meeting in April, Hungary will present its position regarding the importance of border protection, he said. It is unacceptable that the migration package still states that border violation is not a crime but should be handled as a public administration issue, he added.

“Our position is that border violation is one of the most serious crimes that can be committed against the sovereignty of a country,” Szijjártó said. The international community should focus on punishing border violation as strictly as possible instead of excusing the trespassers, he added.

In response to a question, he said the central European countries view the issue similarly to Hungary and the new Austrian government also represents a similar position. He added that anti-migration parties received the strongest support at the latest election in Italy and certain Far Eastern countries plus Australia have also been urging much stricter migration policies than those promoted by the UN secretary general. This goes against the efforts by UN bureaucrats and the majority of member states who want to abolish categorisation within migration, he said.

“That is obviously unacceptable and many have raised their voices against it,” he said.

He said there is also a regrettable effort on the part of the European Commission to prevent member states having their own position in the remaining part of the dispute about the migration package. The Commission wants the EU to declare already that it supports the migration package, he said.

“Which is nonsense … because out of six rounds of talks only two have been completed. If the EU already declares that it supports the package … it will issue a blank cheque, which is extremely dangerous,” he said.

While in Bratislava, Szijjártó also met Economy Minister Peter Ziga to discuss infrastructure investment projects and visited the headquarters of the ethnic Hungarian MKP (Party of the Hungarian Community).

featured image: MTI

Source: MTI

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