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I thank President Vučić for the cooperation we have developed in recent years to jointly protect Europe from increasing migration pressure. Without Serbia and Hungary, today there would be many hundreds of thousands more illegal migrants in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands than there are. So I thank the President for his cooperation. I would also like to thank the Chancellor for standing by Hungary at the last European Council meeting in Brussels, and for trying to help us. At that Council meeting I tried to explain that there are solutions that are good at sea, but the same solutions will be bad on land. Few people understood this sophisticated approach, but your Chancellor made it clear that this is the case; he tried to help, and it was not his fault that he was not successful.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Hungary is a country in a special situation. There is a war in our eastern neighbour, Ukraine, and the busiest migrant route crosses our southern border. No other country is in the same difficult situation. We are not only protecting Hungary from illegal immigrants, but we are protecting the whole of Europe – including Austria. Last year a total of 330,000 illegal migrants were stopped along the entire length of Europe’s borders, of which 270,000 were stopped at the Hungarian-Serbian border. I imagine that you sense the weight of these numbers. If we were not doing what we are doing, you would be in big trouble. The Hungarian model, which is effective, is based on a very simple idea: no one is allowed to enter Hungary until their asylum application has been assessed. They can only enter if their application has been accepted, and until then they cannot enter the country’s territory. This is the Hungarian model, it works, and I believe that it should be adopted by all the countries of the European Union. Unfortunately, this is not what is happening. Now a regulation has been adopted in Brussels which prescribes mandatory quotas and makes it obligatory for Member States to construct refugee camps and migrant ghettos. This is not only bad for Hungary, Ladies and Gentlemen, but also for you Austrians. The new legislation may help Italy, but it would certainly make things worse for you in terms of migrant flow from Hungary, because we would have to replace an effective Hungarian model with a new European model that is clearly not working. But I would like to inform you that we shall not implement these decisions of the European Union. We shall not accept the mandatory quota. Nor shall we accept the obligation to build migrant ghettos and camps. We shall find a legal and political way to ensure that Hungary does not implement the latest decision from Brussels. The situation is sad, but Hungary must defend itself not only against illegal migrants and people smugglers, but also against Brussels. And we shall do so.
Thank you very much for your attention.
