EP election – Orbán encourages ‘anti-migration’ voters to participate

All “pro-migration” voters will turn up at the ballots for the European parliamentary election, “so let us be there, too”, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told commercial Hir TV on Friday, ahead of Sunday’s vote.

Arguing that “the Left is going ahead with its campaign with huge forces all over Europe”, Orbán called on “everybody in Hungary” to cast their ballot. Warning that the campaign is not over yet, he said it would be “disrespectful” to consider the election as decided because “chances never realise themselves; we must realise them”.

Migration and politicians’ approach to it have “changed everything” in Europe since the last EP election, Orbán said.

The question in focus is whether “pro- or anti-migration” politicians will be at the helm or “whether Europe stays Europe for the Europeans”, he added. Orbán insisted that if he receives “a strong authorisation” from voters “clearly expressing their wish that the EU should have no pro-migration leaders” he would have better chances of promoting that wish in the European Council.

A large part of Europeans now share Hungary’s position and thinks that “Europe should belong to the Europeans, public security should be maintained, terrorism should be shut out, nobody should enter these countries without permit, and each European country should stay as its culture has shaped it”.

“A strong, violent, external invasion should not be let to change the framework of our life,” he said.

Immigration “would not only create a cultural problem” and “destroy public security” but undermine Hungary’s economy, too, Orbán said. In the next EU budget “the moneys of European taxpayers should not be spent on immigration but for example on family assistance and development,” he added.

Referring to ethnic Hungarian communities abroad, Orbán called on Hungarians in Romania to support RMDSZ and Hungarians in Slovakia to vote for the MKP party.

Touching upon the recent case of Heinz-Christian Strache, former vice-chancellor of Austria, Orbán said that “the first thing the successors to anti-migration Freedom Party ministers did was to increase the remuneration for migrants”. He went on to say that Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is “under pro-migration pressure” and “many in and outside seek to direct the Austrian government back into the flock of pro-migration governments”.