Referendum – Official: Oct. 2 vote to determine government mandate against quota scheme

Budapest, September 23 (MTI) – The strength of the Hungarian government’s challenge against Brussels’ mandatory migrant quota scheme will depend on how strong a mandate it will receive from voters in the Oct. 2 referendum, deputy parliamentary leader Gergely Gulyás said on Friday.

The quota referendum is about much more than a few thousand migrants “or the fact that the European Union should theoretically not even have the authority to make a decision” in a matter in which it was not even given power to do so, Gulyás said at a conference about Hungary’s future, organised by the Alliance of Young Christian Democrats.

The referendum is also about national identity, values-based disputes and what kind of societies Hungarians envision for future Europe, he said, insisting that the matter at hand in the referendum is above party politics.

He argued that while the majority of voters in western Europe were also for stemming the migrant inflow and protecting Europe’s external borders, last year the “European politicsl elite” and “Brussels bureaucrats” were “celebrating anarchy” and considered ignoring the Schengen rules to be “the right European behavior”. He said those who had adhered to the various international treaties in the management of the migrant crisis were considered “bad Europeans”.

Gulyás said countries that fail to honour their commitments relating to border protection have no place in the Schengen area.

Photo: MTI

Source: MTI