In a speech before daily business in Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that “The quota referendum on Sunday achieved its goal; Hungary has made its decision”.
“The goal was to set the record straight and make it perfectly clear what Hungarians want in relation to the issue of mass migration”, the Prime Minister said, pointing out that 3,282,723 people had rejected it.
“From today onwards we shall not be representing the will of the Hungarian government or its leader – or even the members of the Hungarian parliament sitting here – but the will of almost three million three hundred thousand Hungarian people”, he said. In comparison, the Prime Minister recalled that “When Hungary decided to join the European Union, the votes of 3 million 50 thousand people were enough for accession, and now some 3.3 million people have said ‘no’”.
The people of Hungary have made history
“On Sunday, the people of Hungary made history, because yesterday’s overwhelming victory for the ‘No’ vote means that Hungary was the winner”, the Prime Minister declared, pointing out that Hungary was the first Member State in the European Union – and so far the only one – in which voters have been asked the question which may well determine the very existence of the European Union.
“Three million three hundred thousand people agreed with the proposal of Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People’s Party”, Mr. Orbán said, adding that never in the history of Hungarian democracy since 1990 has a single party or party alliance received support on such a scale. “One million more Hungarian voters expressed confidence in the Government’s position than the number of people who gave us a second mandate to govern in 2014”, he pointed out.
He said that “There are some who try to downplay and disregard the will of three million three hundred thousand people”, but, he added, “not a single honest elected Member of Parliament in Hungary can allow anyone to override this will”. He noted that although constitutionally Sunday’s referendum does not force the Hungarian parliament to create any legislation, the House may do so if it wishes to, and accordingly he is initiating the amendment of the Constitution “in the spirit of the referendum”.
The citizens of Europe also do not support Brussels’ plans
A considerable proportion of European citizens similarly do not support Brussels’ “inhumane proposal for a solution” via mandatory quotas, highlighted the Prime Minister, who said that Hungary is capable of winning battles in Brussels.
Mr. Orbán reminded Parliament that Brussels had decided to compulsorily distribute among Member States illegal immigrants who had already managed to enter the EU, and furthermore to do so without any upper limit on numbers.
The Prime Minister said it is obvious that “If we engage in this confrontation we shall find ourselves at the centre of major European disputes; and this may have some unpleasant consequences – in the form of attacks against Hungary, for instance. At the same time, we can even expect revenge and blackmail from the Commission. In this sense our assumption has been confirmed”.
In his speech before the start of daily business, the Prime Minister described the Brussels bureaucrats and the European left as being pro-migrant, and said that the latter see the arrival of immigrants in Europe as useful, adding that “This is also what the Hungarian left stands for: DK and its leader do so openly, while the MSZP do so both sheepishly and sneakily”.
The parties which ran in the 2014 election “did not say a word about this, and indeed they could not”, so the issue of immigration could not be resolved in the parliamentary election, as it was impossible to determine Hungary’s position on the matter from the result of the election, the Prime Minister said.
“Therefore the only remaining fair solution was for Hungarians to decide what they want. Who should decide on who may stay and who may live in the territory of Hungary? Who should decide on this: Brussels or Budapest?” Mr. Orbán added that “This was the question which had to be answered in the referendum. The decision will determine Hungary’s fate for many years”.
Mr. Orbán said that 92 per cent of those taking part in the referendum – 98 per cent if we discount spoilt ballot papers – had said that “the right to decide lies with Budapest, and we must fight for this right”.
The “organised and orchestrated migrant settlement” which has been going on in Europe for years first appeared in Hungary last year, when hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants illegally, aggressively and intimidatingly “trampled across Hungary in defiance of the Hungarian authorities and the laws of Hungary”, he explained.
“It was then that the Hungarian government decided to use all available resources to restore law and order, and to protect its citizens, and accordingly we built a defence system comprising physical, legal and military elements”, Mr. Orbán said. “Military and police personnel performed their duty in an exemplary fashion, even repelling attacks on them by organised criminals at the Röszke border station”, he said. He stressed, however, that there is a continuing migrant threat from the South, and that the intense immigration pressure will continue for many years to come, “and will at times intensify”. This is why the Government decided on the construction of further border protection barriers, and Hungary is now capable of holding back a threat from the South, “even if it numbers in the millions”, the Prime Minister said.
Hungary has every right to make its voice heard
Mr. Orbán also spoke about the fact that “we have effectively become a model Member State” since 2010. Hungary observes the fiscal discipline demanded by Brussels, is fulfilling its international commitments and has incorporated the European legal system into its Fundamental Law; it therefore has every right to make its voice heard on fundamental joint European issues, the Prime Minister argued.
The Prime Minister said that he expects the road ahead to be difficult, because “the political elite and their supporters – including their Hungarian supporters – have a vested interest in unlimited immigration and resettlement […] have a powerful arsenal of weapons” and are “loud, anti-democratic and aggressive”.
In closing, the Prime Minister said that “Our duty is to enforce the clear and unambiguous will voiced yesterday by the Hungarian people”.
The full text of the Prime Minister’s speech to Parliament is available here.