In an interview published on 18 May in the weekly magazine Demokrata, State Secretary at the Hungarian Ministry of Justice Pál Völner said that Hungary must take a stand for its independence, because if it gives in it may lose its sovereignty within 15 years.
Mr. Völner added that the role of the European Commission should be to serve the joint decisions of the Member States rather than to dictate to them. He gave the following explanation regarding the lawsuit launched in Luxembourg: “[...] we do not want to be partners of a mechanism which obliges us to continuously take in uncontrolled masses in the future”; he noted that the EU decided on this issue with a majority vote and not unanimously.
Speaking of the Hungarian referendum on the mandatory resettlement quota, he explained that there is a gravity to this issue which will determine the fate of the country for decades to come, and the result of the referendum will be “the will of the nation, and not merely the opinion of its current representatives”.
The Member States should be given the right to decide whom they want and do not want to take in. In other respects, Hungary has the right of veto regarding the issue of migration, and Hungary is not willing to give this up. The Secretary of State said that this is the message which Hungary could send to the Eurocrats in Brussels with the referendum in the autumn.
Mr. Völner said that the idea to force Member States to pay 250,000 euros for every migrant refused entry as part of the resettlement quota is unacceptable. Such a penalty was not discussed during accession negotiations, nor at the time the Treaty of Lisbon was signed; the only aim of this sanction would be to “force the Member States into the new distribution mechanism”, the Secretary of State added.