Orbán: MEP’s ‘crime’ was helping protect Hungary from migration

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday said the reason behind the European Parliament’s legal committee finding a conflict of interest related to Hungarian MEP László Trócsányi’s candidacy for EU commissioner was that the former justice minister had helped protect Hungary from migration.

On Thursday, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) established that there was a conflict of interest between Trocsanyi’s candidacy and law firm Nagy and Trócsányi’s receiving orders from the Hungarian state.

In an interview to public broadcaster Kossuth Radio, Orbán praised Trócsányi as an internationally respected legal expert and experienced diplomat, calling him the “most qualified” candidate for European commissioner.

“But he committed a crime” by helping the government protect Hungary from migration, Orbán said.

It was with Trócsányi’s help that the government had drafted the legislation that prohibits anyone from entering Hungary’s territory illegally, without the proper documents, the prime minister added.

“And they’re now rubbing his nose in it,” Orbán said. He called it a “sly move” on the EU’s part that the vote against Trócsányi had happened in the legal committee and not in the one in charge of Trócsányi’s designated portfolio of neighbourhood and enlargement.

Orbán said he had spoken with European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, agreeing with her to wait for the legal committee to issue a written opinion on the matter.

He said he is looking ahead on the matter and has “a second, a third and a fourth solution” ready.

Concerning his visit to Rome last week where he attended a conservative political meeting, Orbán said he “felt at home” at the event and that it reminded him of the meetings of the Hungarian conservative civic circles movement around 2004-2005.

Commenting on Italy’s internal political situation, the prime minister said the new government there had been appointed without being elected, and therefore many Italians felt that with former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini gone, they had lost the one person who could guarantee the country’s security. Orbán said this development meant that Hungary, too, had temporarily lost an ally in the fight against migration.

“And just as it always happens, whenever a left-wing government is set up, the ports are immediately opened and migrants arrive immediately,” Orbán said. “They’re not stopping them, but rather bringing them in.”

Commenting on Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s recent criticism of the Hungarian government, Orbán said there were matters in which Hungary could be of help and matters in which it could not and did not even want to be.

“We’re not going to help them open the ports, bring in migrants and redistribute these people across Europe,” he said.

However, Hungary can be of help to Italy when it comes to border protection, “and if necessary, we could take over the patrol of any section of the Italian border”, he added.