At the Brussels summit EU leaders agreed on the so-called external issues of migration such as the protection of the borders and the stopping of migrants outside the borders, but there is still no agreement on the issues of resettlement and immigration, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in the early hours of Friday morning in summary of the results of the first day of the summit.
The statement was released on the Prime Minister’s Facebook account after talks that extended well beyond midnight.
“This was a struggle, a kind of political grappling. The good news is that we agreed on the so-called external issues of migration: protection of the borders and stopping migrants outside the borders. The bad news is that we still disagree on the issues of resettlement and immigration. There are still many – big and strong ones – who do not want to stop migration, but want to bring migrants into Europe and to then distribute them on a mandatory basis. Consequently, they also want to settle aliens, migrants into Hungary, despite the fact that we do not want this at all”, the Prime Minister said.
Mr Orbán said in his video message that “the Central Europeans fought well, the Polish, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Slovenes and we too”.
“We managed to maintain our post, but failed to convince our opponents. The dispute has not finished, the judge has suspended the dispute. There will be a few weeks’ break now. We are going to meet again in March, and we shall continue the struggle around the issue of immigration”, Mr Orbán said.
He remarked that the two-day EU summit will continue on Friday morning, but the agenda of the second half of the meeting will only feature economic and financial issues.