European leaders have no authorisation for what they are doing, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stressed in Madrid.
Mr. Orbán, who is attending the congress of the European People’s Party in Madrid, held separate talks with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić on Wednesday.
In an interview given to the Hungarian public service television channel M1, the Prime Minister said that different types of problems had emerged in the Balkan countries. He took the view that today the most stable country in the region is Serbia, being the country with the most stable political leadership.
“Serbia has become a key country – not only for Hungarians, but for the whole of Europe. I believe that we should take more seriously the affairs of the Serbs, the cause of the Serbs and the defence capability of the Serbs, and should do more to reinforce them in the future than we have done to date. Compared with the burden they are bearing, an unfairly small amount of money has been channelled there from the EU, and I think that without the Serbs, we shall not be able to resolve this migrant crisis. I therefore believe that European leaders should concentrate on reinforcing Serbia’s capabilities”, he said.
He added that it must be made clear that the EU takes Serbia’s EU membership seriously, “and the migrant crisis has demonstrated that if we want to protect ourselves against such phenomena, Serbia must be closer to us, and must be integrated more into the European Union”.
“We shall support Serbia in Brussels, partly out of good neighbourly relations, and partly out of our own national interests”, the Prime Minister stated.
Regarding his speech to be delivered at the People’s Party’s congress on Thursday, Mr. Orbán said he would mainly like to raise the issue that “what is happening now and what European leaders are doing is something for which they have no authorisation from the European people. No one has ever voted for allowing hundreds of thousands of migrants into the territory of the EU, no one has ever decided on the part of the people that they like and accept what is happening now”. This is also destabilising European democracies, he added.
The Prime Minister argued that we can no longer avoid a serious debate “as to what we actually want to do with our own continent. We believe that what is happening now is not the strengthening of Europe, but its destruction. We must start this debate sincerely, without the muzzle of political correctness and without hypocrisy, but with straightforward, comprehensible and sincere talk”, he stressed.
“There is a problem today with European democracies: quite clearly, in a number of countries, the views, policies […] of leaders do not meet with the approval of the people […]. If we are unable to conduct a sincere debate, several European countries and the entire continent itself may become politically destabilised”, he stated. The people must be listened to, and their views must be integrated into our policies. If there is a failure to do so, “we shall not only have a migrant crisis, but also a political crisis”, the Prime Minister said.
In his view, however, fundamental democratic values in Europe have not been shaken; on the whole, Europe has not lost its democratic character, and the political leaderships of Europe still have the ability to change their positions “because the people demand that the current policy should not continue”.
“I believe that Europe will be able to make such a self-correction”, he stressed.
Regarding the summit being held on Sunday, the Prime Minister said that Slovenia requested the summit because it appears that it cannot cope with the situation on its own. “It was hard for Hungary, too, on its own. It is much easier now because the Visegrád countries are helping us, which is a very strong political backing for Hungary”, he said, adding that “we cannot be grateful enough for this, and we must express our appreciation with the right gestures; while we have been attacked, rather than supported, by a number of other countries in Europe, they have stood up for us in the spirit of Central European solidarity – and what is more, they are also providing help, physical assistance”.
Such a Central European cooperation scheme may also help Slovenia, he said.
Regarding the fence built on the Hungarian-Croatian border, Mr. Orbán said that the Hungarian position is simple. The uncontrolled, unrestricted flood of migrants into Europe is a bad thing, against which we must protect the continent. “We should protect our way of life, and we must protect Hungary and the Hungarian people’s way of life. In this respect, there is strong national consensus in Hungary”, he stated. The border serves this purpose, he added.
“We did not build a fence on the border for others to later allow migrants to avoid it and take them into Austria and Germany. We would like to ask our neighbours to turn them back. In other words, the right thing to do is not to allow for their entry into the European Union, but to take them back to where they set out from: to the refugee camps near their country, which is right now in great trouble.”
The farther they move from their troubled country, the more difficult it will be for them to return, he stressed. The conditions for their existence must be created in their own region: in Turkey and in Greece. “The European Council has decided on this. These collection camps – called “hot spots” – must be set up in Greece and Italy by the end of November. I sincerely hope that the European Council will be able to enforce its own decision”, the Prime Minister said.