PM accused of accepting migrant quotas
February 24th, 2016A pro-government commentator rejects as ‘lies’ opposition allegations according to which PM Viktor Orbán accepted compulsory migrant quotas when he signed the declaration issued at the end of the latest EU Summit.
Jobbik, MSZP and DK all interpreted a passage in the final declaration as a sign of submission by the Prime Minister to the compulsory quota system which he publicly rejects. The document released at the end of the summit which outlined the deal meant to keep the United Kingdom inside the European Union contains a passage on the migration crisis calling for the implementation of two earlier decisions, including the one on the relocation of 40 thousand migrants from Italy and Greece.
In Magyar Hirlap, Zsolt Bayer calls opposition politicians who accuse PM Orbán of reneging on his anti-quota position ‘liars’. He contends that the declaration the PM signed refers to resolutions on voluntary migrant relocations. In any case, he continues, the one on applying compulsory quotas in the transfer of migrants was rejected by both the Hungarian and Slovak governments. Both countries took the case to the European Court of Justice, on the grounds that national governments are competent in immigration matters and member states cannot therefore be compelled to receive migrants they do not want to host. Hungary thus continues to reject the compulsory quota system along with the rest of the Visegrád countries, Bayer concludes.