Orbán: Brussels must listen to ‘voice of people’

Budapest, June 24 (MTI) – The greatest lesson to be learnt from the UK’s referendum is that Brussels must listen to the voice of the people, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Friday.

Orbán told public radio Kossuth that it is necessary to analyse what issues were decisive in the debates about European Union membership. He said immigration has been such an issue. The Brits were looking for a way to withstand modern-age migration, to keep control over their lives and “preserve their island”, he added.

“It seems the British have been unsatisfied with the politics and the protection that the EU offered in this situation, ” Orbán said.

The British decision must be respected because every nation has the right to decide its fate, he said.

Hungary is a member of the EU because “we believe in a strong Europe”, Orbán added. But “Europe can only be strong if it can give responses to such important issues as migration in a way that does not weaken the community but strengthens it. The EU has failed to give such responses,” Orbán said.

On the subject of a referendum in Hungary to be held in September or October on whether to accept the EU’s quota regime on migrants, Orbán said he is looking forward to “interesting debates”. “After all, this is one of the most important issues, if not the single most important issue, on the future of the nation,” he said. He said the left-liberals’ attempts to thwart the referendum have been blocked. “Hungary is a strong democracy, the people will decide what they want,” he said.