Interview – House speaker: Europe should continue to belong to Europeans

Budapest, December 21 (MTI) – Europe should remain for Europeans and Hungary should continue to belong to Hungarians, Parliamentary Speaker László Kövér said in an interview to regional daily Észak-Magyarország published on Wednesday.

The sources of migration appear to be unremitting and even if the crisis in the Middle East is settled relatively soon, Africa will still remain with a population boom and poor climate prospects, Kövér said. The situation will deteriorate, and if Europe continues to do what it has done so far, it will run into catastrophe, he added.

He said he saw a chance for change in Germany and the European Union’s migration policies, which could result in priority given to the protection of external borders and stopping migration outside the EU.

Kövér said emigration from Hungary was a serious loss, though Hungary was not the only country affected by it. Among the former eastern-bloc nations, Hungary’s problem is the least serious. Some 825,000 Lithuanians, or one-third of the population, have emigrated since 1990 and some 2.5 million Bulgarians work abroad, more than the number of workers in Bulgaria, he said, adding that the trend could change by, for instance, encouraging people to have children, boosting wages and strengthening the sense of responsibility in young people for their home country, their nation and their parents.