After years of negotiation, the European Union closed this Wednesday a migration pact on which it had been working for years and which toughens reception conditions. An agreement that binds all member states, including Hungary, one of the European partners with the most extreme positions on migration and asylum. The ultra-conservative Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, who in controversial statements compared the agreement on the forced relocation of migrants to a “legal violation” of his country and Poland, which were opposed, has again charged this Thursday against the new regulatory package and has defended its formula: that asylum seekers remain outside European territory until their application is resolved.
Human rights organizations in Hungary denounce that the Orbán Government has in practice suppressed the right to asylum in the country. The xenophobic policies of the ultra leader, who starred in headlines and covers for inhumane treatment during the 2015 refugee crisis, have cost him clashes with Brussels. Also due to attempts to criminalize refugee aid organizations. In an annual appearance before the media, the fifth he has held in recent years, Orbán has stated that “the basis of the migration package is defective.” “We had a big debate about this last year, and I spent hours trying to explain it,” he said.
Whoever enters the country is immediately returned to where they entered. To obtain refugee status in Hungary, applicants, regardless of their origin, must apply to two Hungarian representations abroad: in kyiv (Ukraine) and in Belgrade (Serbia). The Russian invasion of the neighboring country reduces the possibilities for the Serbian capital, but the demands that are being managed can be counted on the fingers of one hand, according to organizations such as the Helsinki Committee. “The only way to stop migration is for anyone who wants to enter the EU to stay outside until the relevant decision is made. Any other solution will not achieve the desired result,” said the prime minister. “I am convinced that the Hungarian regulation is the model. We should not oppose him, we should not denounce him,” he insisted. “It is the only regulation that works in Europe.”
The Hungarian Government has recently been pointed out by parties in Slovakia for trying to influence the elections in that country in favor of the populist Robert Fico by allowing the passage of migrants in an irregular situation to the Slovak border, in a strategy somewhat similar to that of Aleksander Lukashenko on the eastern edge of the EU. Orbán has flatly denied it. The Hungarian Prime Minister has rejected “the assumption” that they alter the migratory flow “for political reasons.” The leader, who boasts of having shielded the border from him, has acknowledged that “this closure is not airtight.” “We try to fight back, but sometimes they manage to get through,” said Orbán, who has also reported an increase in the level of violence at border crossings.
“There is a bubble in Brussels and it has to burst”
Orbán has become a thorn in the side of the European Union. At last week's summit in Brussels he was seen more alone than ever, when at the proposal of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he was invited to leave the room while the decision was being made on the start of Ukraine's accession talks to the EU. . With his abstention he allowed the decision to go ahead, but the next day he blocked the 50 billion euro aid package to kyiv. The threats are still very much alive a week later: “Ukraine cannot be admitted to the European Union without the decision of the Hungarian Parliament,” he warned. Regarding the financial lifeline to Ukraine, postponed to another summit in February, he has shown the way to the partners: “26 of them can join and do it outside the budget [comunitario]but they cannot do it within the budget without Hungary,” he said, later stating that Hungary's objective is not to “block decisions, but for the EU to make good decisions.”
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The prime minister, in his fiery rhetoric against Brussels, has stated that “it is a fact that Hungary is being blackmailed in Brussels.” The blackmail, he claims, comes from the European Parliament, which “threatens to replace the president of the European Commission [Ursula von der Leyen] if he gives Hungary the money it owes”, despite the fact that the country is making “almost all” of the reforms that have been demanded of it to straighten out the rule of law. “You can't blame me for doing everything in my power to defend Hungary's interests in a situation of so much extortion,” she said.
In Brussels, the opinion is quite the opposite: that Orbán uses blackmail to obtain economic returns in exchange for not blocking strategic policies, as in the case of Ukraine: “We do not want to link Ukrainian money to any Hungarian money. If we have a dispute with someone, we resolve it with them, not sideways, through the back door. The only thing we ask is that what is in the budget be executed. The Hungarians' money is in the budget; It's our money; Give it to us,” said the head of the Hungarian government this Thursday.
Orbán has his sights set on the European Parliament elections, hoping for a sharp rise in the far right. “Things are very bad in Brussels: there is no peace on our border, the economy is deteriorating and cannot cope with conflicts like those breaking out in the Balkans. And how did we get here? There is a bubble in Brussels, and it has to burst,” he noted. The Hungarian Prime Minister, who is also alone in the European Parliament after having been expelled from the Group of the European People's Party, has assured that his party, Fidesz, is in negotiations to join the Group of Conservatives and Reformists, which includes far-right parties such as Vox or Brothers of Italy, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
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