In an interview with public broadcaster Kossuth Rádió, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán emphasised that Hungary’s position is that all attempts aimed at the “forcible exclusion” of Hungarians from the area of free movement in Europe are unacceptable, as Hungary is the only Schengen Member State which has truly protected the external borders of the Schengen Area, the zone of free movement.
The Prime Minister explained that some of the EU’s Member States – mostly the founding countries – wish to separate themselves from Central European countries, through which migrants have arrived in the EU. “They wish to protect themselves – in my opinion against their own failed migration policy – by reinstating border controls for entry to countries which are not on the external borders of Europe”, he said.
Mr. Orbán pointed out that in Prague on Thursday, Member States of the Visegrád Group – Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia – agreed to jointly organise their efforts to protect their freedom of movement. In order to achieve this, they founded the “Friends of Schengen” group.
Speaking about the fact that Hungary has turned to the Court of Justice of the European Union to challenge mandatory resettlement quotas, the Prime Minister said that this move is not a matter of symbolism, but of substance : “we want (the Court) to annul” the decision on the quotas, as in Hungary’s view it contradicts EU law.
The Prime Minister stressed that Brussels may not tell others whom they should live together with. Nobody in Brussels may have the power to resettle people in Hungary “with whom we do not want to live together”, he said.
Talking about the Government campaign on the dangers inherent in resettlement quotas, he said that the Cabinet must seek to gather the most important facts and it has the duty to inform people about them. The Prime Minister was of the opinion that the world’s political actors must strive to enable people who have fled their countries to return to their homes. This is why, first of all, the situation in Syria must be resolved, and then everybody who came from there must be returned, he said, adding that rebuilding work must start in that region.
Summarising last week’s EU-Turkey summit, Mr. Orbán said that the great powers of Europe wanted to reach an agreement with Ankara because they want to persuade Turkey to protect Europe’s interests and to protect Europe. Hungary’s position is that this is based on faulty logic. Hungary does support an agreement with Turkey, but with the precondition that Europe should be able to protect its borders without outside intervention, he said. “We must not beg for security”, the Prime Minister explained. He also noted, however, that it would not have been wise for Hungary to have vetoed the EU-Turkey agreement and go against Europe’s great powers.
However, he emphasised that there can be no question of an EU-Turkey agreement which transports hundreds of thousands more migrants from Turkey to Europe, and which then distributes them among the EU Members States on a mandatory basis. “There was such an idea; this had to be blocked, and I think it has been deleted from the agenda, but attempts arise again and again”, he said, noting that even now there are European meetings attempting to revive this issue.
According to the Prime Minister it is “an insane idea” that life in Europe will be “happy, shiny and desirable” if we let millions of migrants enter.
Mr. Orbán said that the European Commission’s registration of a civil initiative against Hungary is an act of revenge.
He said that that the Hungarian and Central European way of handling mass migration has been successful, and people living in Western countries are also more supportive of that approach. “But there are leaders, business circles and human rights activists who are angry at Hungary for having proved the opposite of their ideology: for having proved that it is in fact possible to protect this continent in a democratic manner which is in accordance with the will of European people”, he said. He also noted that Hungary will protect itself against this act of revenge.
He also said that “George Soros and Co., the foundations run by them and their activists, a significant proportion of eurocrats in Brussels” and leftist liberal European leaders think that nations are a bad thing. According to Hungary however, “without nations there is no Europe”.
Mr. Orbán also drew attention to the fact that “the gap is widening” between the will of the European people and their leaders, and this is a problem for democracy. “We cannot go against people”, he emphasised, arguing for “another democratic period” in Europe, instead of the current liberal one.
The issue of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership was also raised in the interview. On this topic the Prime Minister said that in the meantime the United Stated has concluded free trade agreements with important parts of Asia, and these will affect the international competitiveness of manufacturing companies active in Hungary. He was of the opinion that now the US-Asian agreements must be analysed.
Finally, talking about education, Mr. Orbán said that he is in favour of a work-based economy and for linking education and the economy. He explained that high-quality education based on real life increases the country’s performance.