According to the Prime Minister, the validity or otherwise of the referendum on Sunday will primarily be important from an emotional perspective. In an interview with Catholic Radio which aired on Thursday evening, Viktor Orbán said that “People who don’t vote will be entrusting the decision to everyone else”.
Mr. Orbán said that “We cannot walk away from this; we are the citizens of this country, and if we do not take part in the decision then we are declaring that we accept a decision arrived at through everyone else’s votes”.
According to Mr. Orbán the validity or otherwise of the referendum on Sunday is important, but primarily from an emotional perspective.
“It’s good to be part of a community whose members know what is important and what isn’t, and who are capable of acting together in relation to an important issue”, he added.
“But from a political perspective the turnout has no significance”, he noted.
Turnout reflects the state and quality of the Hungarian nation, whether the Hungarians do in fact constitute a community, “or are just a collection of people who have been thrown together”, the Prime Minister said.
On the solution to the migrant crisis, he said we should be sending help there, not bringing the problems into the EU. “This is why the appropriate assistance is not to draw resources and people away from the world’s crisis zones, but to help talented people stay there and play a role in the development of those countries”, he stressed.
According to Mr. Orbán, the referendum will not mean the end of something, but the beginning of something: if it is successful, then he will set off for Brussels “with provisions for the journey in my knapsack”.
He will discuss with EU leaders what to do about the Brussels decision to forcibly distribute the huge numbers of migrants arriving on the continent among Member States, with no upper limit on the numbers distributed. “Hungary must change this regulation”, he added.
“If the people of Hungary make it absolutely clear what they want and what they don’t want, then we must enforce this decision in Brussels”, the Prime Minister declared.
“The Hungarian referendum isn’t important because many people have stated something, but because in a democracy if the people state something, then that has weight and cannot be ignored”, he explained, pointing out that the EU regards itself as a democratic community.
Mr. Orbán also spoke about the fact that he regards it as one of the grimmest chapters of European democracy and an act of gangsterism that the European Union came to its decision on the mandatory quota while deceiving four of its Member States: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania, together with Hungary.
The Prime Minister also said that the Government is already working on setting up voluntary territorial protection units.