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The Prime Minister said an effective Hungarian model should be replaced with a new European model that evidently will not work.
Hungary will find legal and political ways to avoid implementing the Brussels decisions, he stated.
He described the situation as sad, and said Hungary is compelled to defend itself not only against illegal migrants and people smugglers, but also against Brussels. Hungary will nonetheless do so.
Mr Orbán also said the Hungarians are protecting not only Hungary, but the whole of Europe, with Austria in it, against illegal immigrants.
The Prime Minister said last year in total 330,000 illegal migrants had been stopped at Europe’s borders, including 270,000 at the Hungarian-Serbian border.
Praising Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s efforts for the cooperation of nations, the Prime Minister said without Serbia and Hungary, there would be hundreds of thousands more illegal migrants in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands than there were at present.
Mr Orbán also thanked Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer for the fact that at the latest Brussels EU summit he had stood up for Hungary. There may be solutions that work at sea, but the same solutions will prove to be ineffective on land, he pointed out.
At the meeting, few understood this approach; however, the Austrian Chancellor made the situation clear and attempted to help. It was not for his efforts that this attempt failed, the Prime Minister added.
Mr Orbán stressed that Hungary was in a special situation; there is a war under way in its neighbour to the East, in Ukraine, while at its southern borders lies Europe’s busiest migrant route.
Mr Orbán said the Hungarian model, which is effective, is based on a simple idea: No one is allowed to enter the territory of the country until their asylum application has been duly assessed.
Applicants are only allowed to enter if their applications have been granted, he added.
The Prime Minister pointed out that the Hungarian model worked, and it should be adopted by all the countries of Europe. However, this is not what is happening because a regulation was adopted in Brussels which provides for the introduction of mandatory quotas and requires Member States to create ‘migrant ghettos.’
This is bad not only for Hungary, Mr Orbán laid down, adding that this regulation may well alleviate the situation in Italy, but would surely make Austria’s situation from the direction of Hungary worse.
In answer to questions, Mr Orbán informed members of the press that the Hungarian government had already decided on Sweden’s NATO accession. The government supports it; however, the Hungarian Parliament has not yet ratified this decision. Hungary is in ongoing communication with the NATO Secretary General and Turkey; if they believe that “there is something to be done,” they will take action in due course, he added.
Responding to a question regarding energy policy, the Prime Minister recalled that for many long decades Serbia had received gas via Hungary, and the quantity they had needed had always been made available to them. Now the situation has been reversed, Hungary is receiving gas from Serbia, and the Serbians are adopting the same approach that Hungary had for many long years, Mr Orbán underlined.
According to the Prime Minister, this example clearly shows how profoundly the countries of Central Europe are connected together, and how important it is that these nations should be aware of their shared fate, regardless of political ideologies.
In answer to a question from the public service media, Mr Orbán described Hungary as a country where, with some exaggeration, at this point in time, “there are zero migrants,” it is the only migrant-free place in the whole of Europe. According to the Prime Minister, the reason for this lies in the existing legal and physical defence system.
The fence and the physical protection of the fence constitutes one part of this defence effort, and while migrants sometimes manage to climb over and get past the fence – as they are armed, and from time to time, they launch “brutal attacks” against the serving border guards and the fence itself – the vast majority of them are apprehended, and these migrants cannot proceed to Austria as illegal migrants.
At the same time, legal protection ties entry into the country to the positive outcome of a fixed asylum procedure. Those who do not arrive in the country in this fashion are taken back to the other side of the border.
This is the only model that will work, the Prime Minister laid down, observing, however, that the EU does not have the courage to take this decisive step employing “external hotspots.” He added that as long as they fail to do so, every measure will only cause the opposite of the desired effect.
Therefore, all regulations other than those which lay down that “you must wait outside” are an invitation as far as the migrants are concerned, and until the EU finally says that migrants must wait for the assessment of their asylum procedures outside the borders, they will continue to cause human tragedies in the tens of thousands, Mr Orbán stressed.
However, instead of taking a decisive step, the EU wants to force the only country which has already taken that step back to the realm of a failed migrant policy, the Prime Minister highlighted.
