In an interview published in Monday’s edition of Polish national daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita, Minister of Human Resources Zoltán Balog said that Hungary is not anti-refugee, but it does not want Brussels to decide who Hungarians should live together with. Brussels should let Hungarian citizens give their own answer to the question of whether this issue falls under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian parliament, he said. In the interview he also discussed the migration crisis.
The interview was given during Mr. Balog’s visit to the Warsaw Book Fair, where Hungary is this year’s guest of honour. The Minister also opened the 2016–17 Hungarian cultural season in Poland.
Regarding Hungary’s dispute with the European Commission and the parallel developments relating to Poland, Mr. Balog said that the current Polish government is in a situation similar to that of the Orbán government five years ago. He also mentioned the differences: the relative weights of the two countries, as a result of which both the European Commission and the European Parliament tread more carefully when dealing with Poland; and the fact that, unlike the ruling Polish party, Fidesz won two-thirds parliamentary majorities in both the 2010 and 2014 elections. Another major difference is that while in 2010 Fidesz took over the government of an economically weak country, last November the conservatives in Poland inherited a prosperous economy.
Regarding Brussels’ criticisms of the rule of law in Hungary, Mr. Balog said that Brussels has given Hungary validation that the country has a stable democracy. He said that Hungary has since complied with all the requests of the European institutions and the Venice Commission on all contentious issues. He also said that Hungary has rejected those objections which, in the country’s opinion, are matters which do not fall under Brussels’ jurisdiction, but under that of Hungary’s sovereign legislature. He noted that Hungary had amended both its constitution and its media law at the request of the Venice Commission.
Among the issues under the jurisdiction of the Member States, Mr. Balog mentioned that of accepting refugees. “When the European Commission wants to decide how many refugees we should take in, we say they have no right to do so”, he said, reiterating that last September Hungary lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice against the “one-off” refugee quota.
The Minister stressed that Hungary is a “welcoming country”, having given asylum to many Polish refugees during World War II and thousands of Serbian and Croatian refugees during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. He added, however, that while Hungary is not anti-refugee, it does not want Brussels to decide who Hungarians should live together with, because that is a matter of national sovereignty.
Mr. Balog also spoke about Hungarian-Russian relations, in connection with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s recent provocative comments linking Hungary and Poland to “Putin-like leadership” and “authoritarian dictatorship”.
The Minister said that “We are aware of the risks posed by Russian ambitions for greater power. However, the structure of Hungarian society has nothing in common with that of Russian society. It is an entirely different system, which we neither want to emulate, nor copy […] but isolation of Russia by the EU also carries risks”. He said that for the past 25 years Hungary has strived to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies by establishing alternative energy routes and sources, but the EU has been unable to see these plans through.