Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán should become the president of the European Commission to save Europe from the migrant crisis, a leading Austrian MEP has claimed.
In an interview with the APA news agency, Harald Vilimsky, a lawmaker from the poll-topping Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ), heaped praise on the leader of neighboring Hungary, describing him as the polar opposite of the current Brussels elite.
“I think it would be good for Europe,” said Vilimsky about Orbán. “He is the antithesis of the entire EU establishment.”
“Orbán is a guarantee that illegal migration of this intensity is not possible,” he added.
Vilimsky, who is the lead candidate for his Eurosceptic party in next month’s European Parliamentary elections, has been a close ally of Hungary during his decade in Brussels.
Earlier this month in one of his last speeches before the dissolution of the current European Parliament, the Austrian MEP apologized to the citizens of Hungary for the years-long assault by the legislature’s left-wing majority against the Hungarian government solely due to its opposition to mass immigration and continuous funding of the war in Ukraine.
His parliamentary speech came just days after he attended the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Budapest and praised Orbán for caring about the Hungarian people, unlike the European Commission. He also slammed the liberal open-door immigration policy adopted by the European Union and said most across Europe do not want the continent to “become a second Arabia or Africa.”
During his interview with the APA news agency, Vilimsky confirmed his party is against Austria leaving the European Union but wanted significant reform in Brussels, including a considerable reduction in the inflated parliament.
The EU legislature is due to grow to 720 seats after next month’s elections, significantly larger than the 435 seats that comprise the U.S. House of Representatives.
“I’ve always said, let’s cut this parliament in half,” he told the news agency, adding that there is also no need for “27 (EU) commissioners to mistreat the continent.”
Vilimsky suggested that FPÖ lawmakers could propose that Austria, a net contributor to the EU budget, withhold funding to Brussels if the right reforms aren’t put in place.
“Of course, yes. Every journey begins with a first step. If I don’t say what I want and don’t do anything, I won’t achieve anything. If I stop payments, something will have to move there,” he said.
“We just want to replace people (in Brussels) because they bring the wrong content. We want to slim down the European Union, we want to bring powers back to the parliaments of the member states so that we have more direct democracy again,” he added.
