“The Hungarian Government will continue to fight for the security of the Hungarian people”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó declared at a press conference in Budapest.
“The vote in Parliament on the constitutional amendment has shown that the opposition cannot be counted on in the battle to protect the country”, he added.
“The fight against the mandatory relocation quota is not over, and the amendment to the Constitution would have provided great assistance in that”, he noted. “Today’s vote in Parliament has deprived the battle for the protection of the country of this very important weapon”, Mr. Szijjártó added.
The Foreign Minister told the press that in his opinion during the past eighteen months the EU has been incapable of finding a correct and effective solution to the greatest challenge in the history of the Community: mass migration. “However, the standpoint of the Hungarian Government has been clear throughout: the mandatory relocation quota is not a solution to the immigration crisis and in fact depends the crisis and leads to the destruction of Europe”, he stated.
“Given the situation, the Hungarian Government has made substantial efforts to protect Hungary from the quota, but in the EU they still have not given up trying to shove the mandatory relocation quota down Hungary’s throat”, Mr. Szijjártó said. “The pressure is not receding, because the issue will be on the agenda again at the next Council of the European Union session on 20-21 December, meaning we must continue to do everything possible during the next few months to enable the Government to protect Hungary”, he added.
“However, during today’s parliamentary vote it transpired that with regard to protecting the country the Hungarian people can only count on the Government and the governing parties”, the Minister stressed. Mr. Szijjártó recalled that the country has been under major pressure since the beginning of the crisis, towards which the greatest assistance was provided by the fact that a new unity came into being at the 2 October referendum, because never before have 3.3 million people all voted for the same cause. “However, the adoption of the constitutional amendment would also have been a great help”, he added.
Later during the press conference, Mr. Szijjártó rejected the comment made by the Greek migration minister over the weekend according to which Hungary’s refugee policy is chopping down the EU’s support pillars. He also mentioned the statement by the President of the European Commission according to which the Hungarians don’t know what is in their interests.
“What is in the Hungarians’ interests is something that we Hungarians are precisely aware of; this is something EU leaders should leave to us”, the Minister declared. “It is in the interests for the Hungarian people that the quotas should not be mandatory and the Hungarian Government will be doing everything possible to assure this”, Mr. Szijjártó said.