Following the European Parliament’s vote to approve the Migrant Pact, Hungarian politicians are warning that the pact will do little to stop the migrant crisis and will force mandatory migrant quotas on Europe.
Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi told state-run Kossuth Rádió on Monday that migrants are taking advantage of Europe’s weakness, and helped by people smugglers and NGOs, they are arriving in Europe en masse in violation of the law
The reaction comes after the European Parliament last week voted on the main pillars of its migration pact, which would on the one hand speed up the repatriation of illegal migrants but also establish a mandatory quota for member states. Hungary, along with a number of Central and Eastern European nations, has long opposed mandatory migrant quotas.
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“The European Parliament (EP) is only prolonging the migration crisis by continuing to impose the same unworkable solutions on illegal immigration as before,” Hidvéghi said. The Fidesz MEP pointed out that since the beginning of the migration crisis eight years ago, the European Parliament has been pushing the same failed solution: enforcing the distribution of migrants across Europe.
He noted that a state of emergency has been declared in Italy because of the unsustainable situation, with three to four times as many people arriving on the Italian shores via the Mediterranean compared to a year ago.
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According to Hidvéghi, the real solution, a start to the fight against people smuggling and illegal entry attempts, would be to focus on border protection and to establish the basic principle that it is not possible to enter the European Union illegally and in violation of the law, and that if you arrive in this manner, you will be returned to the country you left from. According to Hungarian news outlet Magyar Nemzet, he said that the problem is that many people enter the EU illegally and stay on the continent. Data shows that deportation rates for rejected asylum seekers across Europe remain abysmal, as well as in individual countries such as France and Germany.
“This is what should be fixed, but the pro-immigration part of the European Parliament doesn’t think so and continues to push for the wrong solutions, which includes the votes of Hungarian left-wing MEPs who did not say no to these proposals in Thursday’s vote,” Hidvéghi said.
