Budapest, September 7 (MTI) – Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday that his request to migrants not to come to Europe through Hungary was “for moral reasons” because he could not take responsibility for what might happen to them along the way.

Addressing the start of a two-day meeting in Budapest of Hungary’s foreign mission leaders, Orban said that people who had already made it to Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria are already safe, so they are not running for safety. They have actually “set their eyes on life in Germany”, he added.

Hungary does not exclude the possibility of “a sensible and fair” discussion of the European Union quota system but “we have a problem with the timing,” he said. Orban said the quota system only set out to address the consequences of migration instead of dealing with its causes. All international participants are prepared for the current situation, except for Europe, Orban said. He added that Australia, the United States, Israel and the Gulf states have all refused to take in the migrants.

Problems must be dealt with where they have emerged, because it is an illusion to think that it is possible to send back migrants, he said. “Everyone would be better off” if they sent money to those countries where migrants turn up to first. “If they don’t come here, the cost is less,” the prime minister said.

Orban dismissed the idea that anyone had the right to tell Hungary to significantly change its cultural and ethnic composition. In connection with this the prime minister said Hungary “historically” had a minority of a “few hundred thousand” Roma, yet it was not asking other states to also live together with a significant Roma minority.

Hungary’s position was not “anti-Islam” and it does not want the issue of migration to cause a deterioration in relations with states belonging to the Islamic civilisation, he said.

The government considers the Muslim community in Hungary valuable and its members living in line with the law, he said. “We are indeed glad that there are kebab vendors on Budapest’s main boulevard”, or that we can buy Easter lamb from the Syrian butcher, Orban added.

Orban said that in 90 percent of European member states, the opinion of the people and “political elite” diverged. In Hungary, however, points of agreement have been formed between the people and the government thanks to national consultations, which anchors government operations in a democratic way, he said, adding thereby the government is sticking to its asylum policy.

“A country without borders is not a country,” he told the envoys. And this is also true if those borders are unprotected, he added.

The EU was right to make borders between member states fade into insignificance, but Hungary also has external borders to protect, under a legal obligation in the Schengen Agreement, the prime minister noted. Hungary has built a barrier in order to keep to Schengen rules, and while there is no guarantee that this will suffice, it must try all it can to protect the external borders, he said.

On the subject of Hungarian legislation passed last week, which comes into force from mid-September, Orban said it is not reasonable to think that any perceivable improvements would come about already on Sept 16, but the government does expect results step-by-step. Hopefully one day Hungary’s borders will be hermetically sealed, while designated border crossing points will be available for entry, he added.

Photo: MTI