On Friday, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister Csaba Dömötör told MTI that the Prime Minister announced that the Government of Hungary has proposed a ten-point action plan for protecting the external borders of the European Union and strengthening the Schengen system.

The Prime Minister spoke about the “Schengen 2.0” plan at the meeting of the Centrist Democrat International (CDI) in Lisbon on Friday. As opposed to the reform of the asylum system, the plan focuses on protecting the borders.

Mr. Dömötör said that the action plan is a response to the European Union’s failed proposal. According to the document, subtitled “Maintain and strengthen”, decisions made on migration must remain within nations’ competencies. He explained this by saying that experience in Europe shows that a number of governments would like to solve economic and demographic issues through migration, which they regard as an opportunity; Hungary rejects this approach, however.

He highlighted one of the points, which is that no mandatory and automatic process for the distribution of migrants must be introduced. He said that this means that the Government of Hungary rejects the mandatory resettlement quota, adding that this is important to place on the record, as the issue of the mandatory resettlement quota has been put on the agenda over and over again, and Brussels has accelerated preparations to introduce it.

Mr. Dömötör also said he believes that it is important for Hungarians to be able to reject this unreasonable and dangerous proposal from the EU. “If we fail to stop Brussels with a successful referendum, decisions will be made for us which might determine the fate of Europe and of Hungary for decades to come”, he said.

The Parliamentary State Secretary said that the document basically outlines goals, and further consultations are needed in order to establish detailed rules.

The ten points are available here in Hungarian

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)