Orbán calls agreement on defence greatest achievement of EU summit

Full agreement on the need to strengthen the European Union’s defence dimension, with all member states willing to participate in the system, is the greatest achievement of the Brussels summit, Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, told a press conference. 

If a European army is born one day, this recent summit will go down in history books as its “starting point”, he said, assessing the two-day meeting.

Orbán said that reinforcing the EU from the point of view of defence was vital since a common military force could be a significant contribution to strengthening the bloc’s economic and political power, too. Orbán said that migration was again in the foreground of the meeting, but on this occasion the participating member states focused on cooperation rather than differences of views. 

Questions like “what should be done with the migrants unjustifiably allowed into Europe”, which are seen as impossible to reach an agreement on, were not raised during the meeting, he said. 

Hungary views the redistribution scheme of migrants among EU member states as a matter of identity rather than a technical issue or a question of solidarity, he said, ruling out that others should determine whom Hungarians should live together with. 

“We have no intention to change our identity. We understand that other countries have made that move but we have the right not to follow them. We are prepared to help those in need locally, build fences and defend the European Union’s internal territories. We are prepared for several things but not for changing our identity,” he said.

Not even a European Court ruling rejecting Hungary and Slovakia’s objections to the migrant quotas will force Hungary to give up its position, Orbán said.