In his interview with Kossuth Radio, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán identified the revision of building regulations and taxation procedures as two symbolic issues for governance in the next half year. The Prime Minister also spoke about the issue of immigration.
Criticizing the EU rules concerning immigration, Viktor Orbán said, "If there were no unrealistic rules imposed on us, then there would be no immigrants in Hungary and those who are here would have all been sent home already". "We cannot send them home and we have to let them enter only because EU rules are forcing us to do so." he said.
Therefore, according to Viktor Orbán, either the issue should be returned to national competence - even though he does not see many supporters for this idea - or the common European regulations should be changed to be more reasonable.
On the quota system proposed by the European Commission, he said that "it is a failure in its present form", the heads of government will reject the proposal of the Commission at the end of June and instead they will discuss other initiatives, leading to a new position.
Viktor Orbán also talked about the fact that people arriving in Hungary through Serbia after entering the EU at the Greek border are not political refugees anymore by the time they reach Hungary. Since they are not coming from a country which they had to escape, they are instead economic immigrants, and they have to understand that the decision on who is allowed entry "shall be taken by us, Hungarians" said the Prime Minister.
He pointed out that in Europe a number of opinions expressed on the issue of immigration were firmer than the Hungarian position. As an example, he mentioned the statement of the Dutch Prime Minister, as well as the British Home Secretary, whose opinion was, in his words, "more masculine on this issue than mine". "There are many opinions being voiced at the same time in Europe, and indeed our position has serious and strong supporters as well" he indicated.
The PM claimed that the national referendum questionnaire was correct, fair and open. “It is another matter that it is not immigrant-friendly. Now we are being questioned why we were not advocating that the immigrants must be liked in our questionnaire. Then again why should we be doing this, if people consider it as a danger and a threat?" he questioned.
In his view, by contrast, on the issue of the immigration the Hungarian political left says that "the more immigrants we let enter, the better it is".
Viktor Orbán rejected the comparison between the current situation and the status of the Hungarians in 1956. Since in 1956 - he said - there were no Hungarian refugees wandering around in Vienna but instead a refugee station was set up where Hungarians were received - or host families accommodated them - and after this they submitted their requests on where they wished to go and then the concerned states decided whether to let them in or not.
On another EU subject, the issue of the Eurozone which will also be on the agenda of the next EU summit, the Prime Minister stated that there is a new institutional system taking shape within the Eurozone. Hungary welcomes the plan for Member States of the Eurozone to cooperate more closely, however Hungary does not want the continent to be torn in two, into a Union that deals with Eurozone issues and an EU that deals with the issues of the countries that are not using the common currency, he said.
Evaluating the governance of the past five years, the Prime Minister said that they fought for five years to complete the transition in the regime, which, according to him, they did successfully. Two events symbolised the end of this era: first, in a village by the River Tisza inhabited mostly by gypsies, people turned out to protest for work instead of for aid, and on the other hand, the era of fair banks had begun.
The financial system is stable, there is no inflation, utility costs have gone down, everyone is speaking optimistically about the future of the Hungarian economy, investments are coming and the trade balance is improving, he enumerated. At the same time he emphasised that "we are not yet living the way we would like to". Therefore instead of crisis management, instead of the "let's achieve something by force" attitude, now the “time for smart, calm, collected work serving the civil establishment has come". He asked his ministers for more conciliation, more discussion, and more consultations. He said it had to be made clear that if the cabinet is performing its work well, then there will be more jobs, lower taxes, more security and a more comfortable life.
To a question inquiring what he would have done differently, he said that he has been a Prime Minister for ten years now and if he were to enumerate all his mistakes "we would still be sitting here in the afternoon". The question instead is whether one has the discretion not to persist with one’s mistakes, which he said Fidesz-KDNP is capable of doing.
Viktor Orbán named the revision of building regulations and of taxation procedures as the two symbolic issues for civic governance in the next half year.
He said that the system of building regulations is not transparent and makes people’s lives harder, and therefore a radical reduction of administrative burdens is needed. There is a need for improvement also in the field of taxation procedures, he said.
He also mentioned in his radio interview that in the autumn he would like to hold yet another national referendum, however, he did not speak about the subject of this.
Those Arriving from Serbia Are Not Political Refugees but Economic Immigrants
According to Viktor Orbán, those who are arriving in Hungary through Serbia are not political refugees but economic immigrants.
The Prime Minister explained that people arriving in Hungary through Serbia after entering the EU at the Greek border are not political refugees anymore by the time they reach Hungary. Since they are not coming from a country which they had to escape, they are instead economic immigrants, and they have to understand that the decision on who is allowed entry "shall be taken by us, Hungarians" said the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister explained that it is understandable for someone to flee their own county if they feel threatened.
But the immigrants arriving in Hungary, wherever they are coming from, first enter Greece, where they are no longer under threat. From there they travel on to Macedonia, where the conditions are calm, and then to Serbia. There is no political persecution in these countries. They proceed to Hungary from countries where they are not classified as refugees, from where they do not have to flee, he stressed.
Whoever arrives in Hungary is an economic immigrant, he stated.
To the question of whether in this case all the aforementioned countries should solve this problem themselves, he claimed that everyone should defend their own borders.
As such, the issue of the economic immigrants arriving in Hungary similarly has to be solved by Hungary, he emphasized. "I do understand that there are siren songs that tempt us to surrender the issue of economic immigrants from our national competence and give it to Brussels, and then the immigrants would be shipped from here according to a quota system, but I do not believe in this. This is a cheap enticement", he said, adding that in the end everybody would stay put “and we would be abandoned with our problems". In his view, therefore, it is fine if the EU border countries - including Hungary - solve the problem using their own resources, their own legislation and their own administration.
“And indeed we could solve it”, claimed Viktor Orbán. He said, "If there were no unrealistic rules imposed on us, then there would be no immigrants in Hungary and those who are here would have all been sent home already".
"We cannot send them home and we have to let them enter only because EU rules are forcing us to do." he said.
Therefore, in his view this issue has to be returned to national competence by the EU or EU regulations have to be changed.
He pointed out that in Europe a number of opinions expressed on the issue of immigration were firmer than the Hungarian position. As an example, he mentioned the statement of the Dutch Prime Minister, as well as the British Home Secretary, whose opinion was, in his words, "more masculine on this issue than mine". "There are many opinions being voiced at the same time in Europe, and indeed our position has serious and strong supporters as well" he indicated.