Migration set to remain Europe’s top issue, says official

Addressing a conference on migration on Friday, Zsolt Németh, the head of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said migration was set to remain the number one issue in Europe over the coming years.

“We must see that the problem is here to stay,” Németh said in his opening speech of the conference organised by the Századvég Foundation.

Commenting on Olivér Várhelyi, the European commissioner-designate for the neighbourhood and enlargement portfolio, Németh said the European Union would benefit from having assigned the position to a Hungarian official.

He said Várhelyi would also likely have to deal with the issues of mass migration, Islamisation as well as the “shared area” of the two phenomena.

Németh said Hungary was in a good position to address these issues, arguing that it had good relations with the countries that have an interest in EU enlargement. And thanks to the government’s southern opening policy, Hungary has also established strong ties with Islamic countries like Turkey, he added.

Meanwhile, he said “Muslim religious trends” were a threat to traditional societies, human rights and the rights of women, adding that they posed a “deadly threat” to Jewish communities. Budapest, in contrast, is “an island of peace” for the Jewish community, Németh said, pointing out that France’s Jewish population was “shrinking at an extremely rapid rate” due to the brutal attacks committed against Jews there.

Source: MTI