It seems that Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took over the revolving presidency of the European Union at the most opportune moment, Őry writes in her column. He can thus give additional weight to what the Visegrád countries have been stating for years.
In Kurz’s interpretation mandatory solidarity means that every EU member state has to contribute to the handling of migration, but not necessarily in the form of taking in migrants, as there is no consensus about this in the European Council.
This is essentially the same as the “flexible solidarity” put forward earlier by the V4. It means that accepting migrant quotas is not the sole form and means of solidarity. Kurz is right in his assessment that the quota was a failure, the experiment did not succeed and not even those who agreed with it met their obligations.
As long as the leaders of the EU keep arguing about the same and – even by bending their own rules – punish those who disagree, this will in the long term lead to the demise of the Union. The Hungarian position on quotas has been consistent, but with introducing Frontex (the EU’s border protection agency) into the mix a new element has been added to the discourse, that of border defense.
Hungary is right in saying that Frontex should offer assistance where it can but the defense of national borders should not be taken out of the hands of countries able to do it, nor should their sovereignty be curtailed.
Even more so, given that taking away national competences was proposed by Angela Merkel who is continuously promoting German dominance over Europe. (Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor) Orbán was sympathetic to Kurz’s idea, but, unsurprisingly, Merkel wasn’t.
The idea of quotas should be rejected on the principles as every such proposal is an open invitation to an endless stream of immigrants, whereas the humane solution would be to keep them at home. In the wake of such summits any good leader should be able to say “we did what our homeland demanded”. Otherwise his country is not his homeland and Europe is most definitely not his home.
