Hungary rejects criticism after EU ministers’ grilling
Hungary on Monday fiercely rejected accusations from the European Union that it was in breach of EU values following an initial hearing before the bloc’s European affairs ministers.
The European Parliament initiated proceedings against the central European nation a year ago, accusing Budapest of imposing restrictions on free media, judges, academics, minorities and rights groups.
‘Politically motivated’
The EU says it is concerned that Hungary’s actions are weakening democracy in the ex-communist country, but Hungary has sought to portray the EU condemnation as “politically motivated.”
“Once again, we are put on pillory for rejecting mass immigration. However, the facts are on our side. We protect Hungary!”, the country’s justice minister, Judit Varga, said on Twitter before the hearing, later issuing another tweet saying that Hungary was “proud” to be once more “protecting the borders of Europe” as it had done in the past.
The country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has been one of Europe’s leading voices against migration into the EU. He has described mass Muslim migration as an “invasion” and “poison.”
EU family values
But other EU member states say that Hungary’s claims are misleading and that the country simply displays a lack of respect for fundamental values espoused by the bloc.
“The EU is like a family in many regards. And in a family there has to be a common set of rules … otherwise it cannot work. And rule of law is a foundation of that,” said Austria’s EU affairs minister, Alexander Schallenberg.
“When we speak of the independence of judges, the freedom of the media, when we speak of the protection of minorities, academic freedom … it reminds us of our identity, of our values,” said Amelie de Montchalin, his French counterpart.
Read more: ‘Orban cannot yield’ on migration, Christian values, Fidesz official says
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘Muslim invaders’
“We don’t see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders,” Orban said in a recent interview with German daily Bild newspaper. The 54-year-old prime minister of Hungary added: “We believe that a large number of Muslims inevitably leads to parallel societies, because Christian and Muslim society will never unite.” Multiculturalism, he said, “is only an illusion.”
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘You wanted the migrants, we didn’t’
When asked by Bild whether it was fair for Germany to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants while Hungary accepted none, Orban responded: “The difference is, you wanted the migrants, and we didn’t.” Migration, he said, threatens the “sovereignty and cultural identity” of Hungary.
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘Migration is poison’
It was not the first time the Hungarian leader has framed migration as a problem for his country. In 2016, he said that Hungary “does not need a single migrant for the economy to work, or the population to sustain itself, or for the country to have a future.” He added: “for us migration is not a solution but a problem … not medicine but a poison, we don’t need it and won’t swallow it.”
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘Importing homophobia’
Orban has repeatedly criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her decision to allow over a million migrants into Germany in the summer of 2015. Orban told Bild in early 2016: “If you take masses of non-registered immigrants from the Middle East into your country, you are importing terrorism, crime, anti-Semitism, and homophobia.”
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘All terrorists are basically migrants’
Orban has also repeatedly criticized the EU for trying to get member states to share refugees based on national quotas. In a 2015 interview with POLITICO, he suggested the bloc’s leaders instead focus more on strengthening the EU’s external border. In the same interview, he said: “Of course it’s not accepted, but the factual point is that all the terrorists are basically migrants.”
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Viktor Orban’s most controversial migration comments
‘Parallel societies’
Orban has found allies in other right-wing governments in eastern Europe such as Poland that also oppose the EU’s refugee policies. In an interview with Spanish TV channel Intereconomia in 2015, Orban raised fears about integrating Muslim migrants in the EU when he said: “What sort of Europe do we want to have? Parallel societies? Muslim communities living together with the Christian community?”
Article 7
The so-called Article 7 investigation could lead to the suspension of Hungary’s EU voting rights if all other member states agree, a move that is likely to be blocked by Poland.
Poland’s EU minister, Konrad Szymanski, said after Monday’s session that Warsaw — also in the European Parliament’s bad books for allegedly eroding the rule of law — did not believe Orban’s policies constituted any systemic risk for democratic standards.
Article 7 is a mechanism of the Lisbon Treaty that ensures “all EU countries respect the common values of the EU.” It was envisaged as a way to mitigate and prevent member states from backsliding on EU values and the rule of law.
“It will be up to the next weeks and months for us to decide how we will move forward,” said the Finnish minister, Tytti Tuppurainen, adding that the ministers were keeping their options under Article 7 sanctions alive.
Read more: What is Article 7 of the EU Treaty?
kw/tj (AP, AFP, Reuters)
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