The EU’s quota programme is a failure and a dead end, Hungarian FM tells Financial Times

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó called the European Union’s quota programme aimed at distributing refugees a failure and a dead end in an interview published in the Financial Times.

In the interview, which was published in Wednesday’s online edition of the British economic daily, Mr. Szijjártó declared that Hungary has been saying precisely the same thing for the past two years: the mandatory resettlement quota is dangerous, impossible to enforce, and contrary to common sense.

The Financial Times recalled that in an interview for a German newspaper the day before, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had declared: “The fact that a Government states that it does not care about the ruling of the European Court of Justice cannot be accepted”.

With relation to this, Mr. Szijjártó told the paper: The Hungarian Government is taking both Chancellor Merkel’s statement and the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) seriously, but the Court decision did not create any kind of legal obligation for Hungary. According to the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Hungary’s place is in Europe, and this is something that nobody can call into question.