PM chief of staff: Top court strengthened Hungarian migration policy

Friday’s ruling of Hungary’s Constitutional Court has bolstered the government’s migration policy and allows its full implementation, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff said.

Gergely Gulyás told a press conference on Friday that the Constitutional Court’s “clear and unequivocal” decision that Hungary may apply its own measures wherever the European Union has not fully worked out EU joint competences had strengthened the government’s position that Hungary “has the right to protect its borders independently of the EU”.

The government has a duty to protect Hungarians from the adverse effects of migration, he said. The Constitutional Court sees regulations pertaining to Hungary’s population and state system as national competences that have priority over EU regulations, he said.

The ruling sees the country’s historically evolving population and the culture of its ethnic minorities and the majority nation as assets that constitute integral parts of human dignity, Gulyás said.

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Asked if Hungary will implement the Court of Justice of the European Union’s (CJEU) ruling concerning its migration rules, Gulyás noted that the European Council, composed of the heads of state and government, had instructed the European Commission to set new rules for migration.

At present the European Commission is hindering rather than promoting the defence of borders, and the CJEU’s ruling is encouraging mass migration, he said, adding that the EC would have to change this situation.

Gulyás said the member states should observe the CJEU’s rulings in each case when they pertain to powers delegated to the European Union.

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He said the Hungarian government’s refugee policy would remain unchanged. Applications for asylum can be submitted to the Hungarian embassy in the first safe country on the refugees’ route, while illegal migrants will continue to be returned from the border.

The Hungarian government has clear-cut ideas about what migration policy the European Union should follow, Gulyás said.

Asylum-seekers should only be allowed to enter its territory once they have been granted refugee status. Until then, they have to wait in hotspots or transit zones outside the EU, he said. “Otherwise there will be a migration crisis,” Gulyás said.

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Source: MTI