Hungary’s government sees referendum on migrants as important as NATO, EU referenda

Budapest (MTI) – The government regards its proposal for a referendum on illegal migration as important as the one on Hungary’s NATO and European Union accessions, respectively, government office chief János Lázár said on Thursday.

Lázár told a press conference on Thursday that the European Commission wants to handle this problem with bureaucracy, while the Hungarian government wants to use democracy. He said the EC’s latest proposal which includes mandatory quotas on migrants means “sharing out trouble; the terrorist threat in Europe”. Brussels would also like to determine who can live in Hungary, he said.

Hungarians were asked about NATO accession in 1997 and about EU accession in 2003.

With its resettlement scheme, the EU would not be distributing refugees but “problems”, Lázár said, arguing that 1.5 million people have already entered Europe unchecked. He said some of these people could potentially be members of terrorist groups.

Hungary’s stance is that Europe is not in need of a new “migration scheme” but rather a new Schengen Area defence and border control system, Lázár said. The government will try to convince the leaders of the other three Visegrad Group countries (Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic) as well as other European leaders before next month’s EU summit, he said.

The government office chief said the European Commission was attempting to force mandatory migrant quotas onto member states but Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is looking for political allies against the plan.