PM Orbán speaking at a public discussion in the European Parliament 🔄

The most important question concerning the European Union migration and asylum package is whether those that want to come to Europe can stay in EU territory while their application is being processed or they must wait outside the EU borders until a decision is made, the Hungarian prime minister said in Brussels on Tuesday.

Viktor Orbán told a public discussion held in the European Parliament with former Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, and Fabrice Leggeri, the former head of Frontex and leader of the French right-wing National Rally (RN) party’s list that as long as this question is not answered, no measures linked to migration would work.

Regardless of what proposals are made in connection with the EU’s migration package, the issue of where the applicants stay while their request is being assessed must be answered, Orbán said. “This is a red line,” he said. If this is not done, everything else remains unresolved.

“If we are not brave enough to say that everyone must stay outside the borders while a decision is being made on their application, then no matter what other decision is made, that will not work,” he added.

Orbán said that if the approval of the migration package does not require unanimous support, only majority support at the vote, then the entire pact would not work and its implementation would be stymied. The European Commission has taken Hungary to the EU’s court because it considered the Hungarian migration regulations not to comply with EU law, Orbán said. “But Hungary has resisted and will continue to fight,” he added.

Orbán said that “one must not forget about the Soros plan which is aimed at organising migration”. “We are fighting against an organised group which is called the Soros empire,” he added. “The Soros empire was paying civil organisations to attack Hungary’s legal system and carried out unlawful activities against Hungary,” he added.

Orbán said the way US businessman George Soros got involved demonstrated how the EU operated.

“This is against us and about how to change Europe; and how to get rid of Christian, conservative, national political leaders and voters, and how to make them insignificant,” he said.

Orbán said the liberals and communists were close to each other because they both liked centrally controlled bureaucratic procedures instead of believing in freedom. He said experience in central Europe showed that former communists could easily turn into liberals.

Speaking about the EU’s policy, Orbán said that the past five years had been dedicated to implementing goals of the current leadership. “Green transition has failed because it has gone against economic and industrial evidences,” said Orbán. He said green transition must not be “politically motivated”, adding that if the opposite was the case, “it would destroy the competitiveness of the European economy”. “That is where we stand today,” he said.

As regards the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine, “decisions may be taken despite all good-will” on measures that could cause difficulties in the European economy “which is prevalent already in the case of farmers,” said Orbán.

The EU should define “what it should do with the issue of the war” in order to find a solution and prevent further crises, Orbán said, adding that it should be handled separately from the issue of Ukraine’s EU integration as much as possible.

Concerning the EU’s Resilience and Recovery Facility (RRF), Orbán said that Hungary had not received “a single penny” from the funds until now, adding that the fund had become “a tool of blackmail” because of its migration policy.

He said every comprehensive initiative of the current leadership of the EU had failed and he called for the “departure” of current EU leaders in office.