A community forum was held on Thursday, 9 May at the Radnóti Miklós Community Centre in Budapest’s 21t district of Csepel with relation to the upcoming European Parliament (EP) elections. At the event, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó and the Ministry of Defence’s Parliamentary State Secretary and Deputy Minister Szilárd Németh discussed the current situation in Hungary and Europe, migration, and the stakes of the elections.
“The world has changes significantly because of the effects of technology, for instance, and parallel with it so has global politics”, Mr. Szijjártó said. “The European Union is one of the losers of this process, because it has not been able to take up the pace, and this has been the result of the organisation’s bad leadership. The EU is facing historic challenges, and it is therefore natural for there to be disputes with relation to possible courses of action. It is however neither natural nor right for those who would like to argue on a national basis to be branded as the European Union’s disruptors. The main topic of dispute is immigration, and thanks to Hungary’s resistance this is still an open issue, and European citizens will be able to decide on this at the 26 May EP elections”, he explained.
According to the Minister, it is in Hungary’s interests for the EU to be successful again, but this should not be realised at the cost of the organisation becoming a European empire. “With relation to handling immigration, for instance, the spheres of competence of member states to handle this situation for themselves must be restored”, he declared. “I believe the European Union can be strong in future if it insists on its national identity and on its cultural and religious traditions”, the Minister stressed.
In his speech, Szilárd Németh pointed out that when the refugee crisis began in 2015, 400 thousand migrants marched across the country, only 170 thousand of whom could be successfully registered, but that too had absolutely no effect or consequence, because these people also left the country immediately. “This is when the Hungarian Government turned to Brussels, but it was unsuccessful, because, as it transpired, pro-immigration leaders are sitting in the EU’s headquarters, and they are still sitting there today”, he explained.
The Deputy Minister highlighted the fact that according to polls, European citizens are fundamentally concerned with the same issues as the Hungarians: illegal immigration and the terrorism that may be linked to it. “Hungary was the first country to go against the will of Brussels and construct a fence along the country’s southern border at the Government’s initiative. Through involving the police and the Hungarian Defence Force, and by introducing legal instruments, we eventually succeeded in defending the country and European Christian culture”, said the State Secretary, adding that in return, however, the Hungarians received only attacks.
Mr. Németh stressed that never before has there been so much at stake at a European Parliament election in view of the fact that the results of the upcoming elections will determine the fate of the European Union for the next 50-100 years. “One might state that what is at stake at the 26 May elections is how we, the people of Csepel and the Hungarians, approach the issue of migration; would we like Europe to stay European and for a strong community of free European nations to be built, or would we like to create an empire that allows entry to the migrants?”, the Deputy Defence Minister explained.