Opposition slams Orban for anti-immigration remarks
Budapest, January 12 (MTI) – The opposition Dialogue for Hungary (PM) condemns Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s recent remarks on immigration and asks the premier to withdraw his statements, Timea Szabo, the party’s co-leader, said on Monday.
On Sunday, after attending a mass rally in Paris, Orban called for a firm EU response to the terrorist murders in France, and added that “immigration must be stopped”. People claiming political asylum should be exempted, he told public television M1.
“It must be made clear that we will not allow, at least as long as I am the prime minister … Hungary to become the target of immigrants,” he said. “We do not want a significant minority with different cultural characteristics and backgrounds living among us; we would like Hungary to stay as Hungary is,” he added.
Szabo asked Orban to stop “rubbing shoulders with the radical right” and riding against the will of the Hungarian people who, she said, want the country to be a part of Europe not only economically but culturally, too.
Szabo said Orban’s remarks were “proof that he takes policies of the radical right as a model” and wants to make Hungary an isolated country shunned by European states. She added that in any case Hungary has never been an attractive target for immigration due to a complete lack of a comprehensive integration policy.
Orban’s remarks also mean that he believes the hundreds and thousands of Hungarians working abroad have no place in European countries.
“The prime minister doesn’t consider the work of Hungarians legitimate, although these people have been forced to find work abroad thanks to Fidesz’s impoverishing economic policy,” she insisted.
Szabo said PM is of the opinion that a colourful community with a multitude of cultural traits and backgrounds would strengthen and advance Hungary.
The leftist Democratic Coalition party (DK) said that the prime minister had started to represent the “chronic populist policies of the extremist Jobbik party”. Agnes Vadai, a DK lawmaker who sits in parliament as an independent, said in a statement that Orban spoke in Paris as if he were a prime minister of a country that must tackle the dangers of immigration. Yet ever since he assumed power people have been leaving the country at an ever faster rate, she said.
The opposition Egyutt (Together) party said Orban was betraying the European values he himself espoused 25 years ago and is increasing Hungary’s international isolation further by making “xenophobic comments”. Nora Hajdu, a senior official of the party, told a press conference that the problem Hungary is facing is not high immigration but a large number of Hungarians leaving the country because of the policies of the Orban government.
The radical nationalist Jobbik party, on the other hand, said that the issue of immigration and refugees is “putting an awkward strain on Europe”. Daniel Z Karpat told a press conference that Jobbik believes Europe should put up a “house full” sign. In the case of Hungary no attempt to increase immigration should even be considered, Z Karpat said. He added that the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Hungary has increased eight-fold over the past one to two years. He said while the government had recently almost acted like a Jobbik supporter when rejecting all forms of immigration, it is scouting places for sites of new refugee camps from local councils free of charge. Jobbik demands that the government reviews the risks before creating any more refugee camps near inhabited areas, he added.
Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters