Hungarian-Austrian rapprochement
July 29th, 2016Commenting on PM Orbán’s meeting with Austrian Chancellor Kern, a conservative columnist suggests that the Hungarian government’s migration policy is becoming mainstream in Europe.
After meeting with Austrian Chancellor Kern in Budapest on Tuesday (see BudaPost July 28), Mr Orbán said that Hungary would take back from Austria all migrants registered in Hungary – and would immediately send them to Serbia and other states through which they came to Hungary. He added that Hungary wants to restore good relations with Austria. Chancellor Kern pledged to send twenty police officers to help patrol Hungary’s southern border.
Hungarian-Austrian diplomatic relations are healing fast, Gábor Stier comments in Magyar Nemzet. The conservative columnist believes that Austria’s stance on migration has shifted significantly over the past year. Last year Chancellor Faymann harshly criticized Hungary’s move to seal its southern border in order to stop the migrant inflow, but later Austria also erected fences on its borders. Stier thinks a more reconciliatory tone used by the new Chancellor and his willingness to cooperate in patrolling Hungary’s borders shows that Orbán’s migration policy is becoming increasingly accepted by centrist politicians in Europe. Stier suspects that the Hungarian Prime Minister may soon add moderate west Europeans to his ‘coalition’, which now has mostly radical right-wing members, and his migration policy vision may become mainstream in Europe.