Fidesz: Border protection most important in handling migrant crisis

Budapest, April 16 (MTI) – Instead of altering its migration policy, the European Union should leave the matter entirely to member states and manage the migrant crisis by protecting the bloc’s external borders, the deputy group leader of the ruling Fidesz party said on Saturday.

Speaking at a press conference, Gergely Gulyás said the EU’s proposals including mandatory migrant quotas “severely” violate the national sovereignty of member states.

This has made the Hungarian government’s referendum on migrant quotas all the more important, he said, noting that the vote is expected to take place in the autumn.

He said the EU’s original proposal mandating the redistribution of migrants among member states with the use of quotas would fundamentally change current asylum rules. The quota system would prescribe that the country where a migrant is resettled would have to assess the asylum application instead of the country through which the migrant first enters the bloc.

Until the EU is capable of protecting its borders and until a system is in place with which asylum requests are ruled on before an asylum seeker enters the EU, there will be refugees, migrants and terrorists among people coming to Europe, Gulyás said. “Nobody can dispute this … after Paris and Brussels,” he added.