Freedom today means the right to choose, the possibility to make our own choices, and we, Hungarians must defend this right, the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office stated on Tuesday in Hódmezővásárhely.
János Lázár said at the commemoration organised by the local government on the occasion of the anniversary of the 1848-49 revolution and freedom fight that our freedom is too precious for us to be taken away or curtailed by a single decision taken in Brussels. There will be no quotas without the agreement and permission of the Hungarian people, he said.
The Minister and MP for Fidesz in the constituency stressed: „we must not yield an inch on this right, if we are not to be a mere silent province in an empire, but an independent country in a free Europe. And that is just what we want to be: proud Hungarians, proud Europeans, but not at the expense of giving up our national sovereignty”, he added.
He stressed that those in favour of the relocation of migrants are not right, and we can never relinquish this segment of our sovereignty. When we voted on our accession to the EU in 2004, no one said anything about a future possibility that someone might tell us at some point whom we should share our native land with and whom we should move into shared lodging with in our own country, he said.
Mr Lázár said that mandatory resettlement is a fundamental issue which may determine our lives for generations to come. Not a single national government can decide on this on its own, within its own competence, even if it holds a two-third majority authorisation, he added.
The politician believes that there are some who wish to understate the importance of the issue at stake, saying that we are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut as it is only a handful of people on account of whom we are holding a referendum on the quotas. The Minister pointed out that the issue is not about a few thousand people, but about a principle, based on which some people in Brussels want to reorganise Europe and want to tell us what to do.
Mandatory resettlement sets a precedent which can be cited repeatedly later on. The quotas are percentages: if more people are coming tomorrow, the quotas will rise accordingly as they have already made us accept the principle, he said.
Mr Lázár stated: „once we have the quotas, there is no turning back”. Those who set out on this path will have to follow that path for eternity, or at least until Brussels realises that what it believed to be the solution is the problem itself, the Minister said.