In the future it will be substantially more difficult to organise, support and finance immigration in Hungary if Parliament passes the Stop Soros legislative package, the Minister of State for Government Communication said in Parliament on Tuesday.
Bence Tuzson highlighted that the government had conducted a social debate on the legislative package, as part of which more than 600 opinions and recommendations had been received.
In light of these recommendations and in harmony with the will of the Hungarian people, the bill now presented to Parliament has been further tightened, he said.
Outlining the package which contains three bills, he highlighted that the former draft would only have required organisations supporting migration to register, while the current more stringent form of the proposed legislation would tie these activities to the permit of the Minister of Interior.
Organisations which apply for a permit must undergo a national security procedure, for the purposes of which the Interior Minister must obtain the opinions of the national security services, the Constitution Protection Office, the Information Office and the Military National Security Service, the Minister of State said. He added that the Minister’s decision can be appealed against before a court of law, but only on the basis of procedural reasons.
Based on the proposed legislation, the applicant seeking to obtain a permit must also be screened so as to determine whether it receives foreign funding for its activities; this screening will be carried out by the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary.
If anyone organises, supports or finances migration without a permit, the prosecution service would have the authority to take action. As a first step, the prosecution service would issue a warning and take action for removing the organisation’s tax number from the relevant register. As a second step, it may impose a monetary fine of up to HUF 1.8 million, and as a third step the prosecution service may press charges before a court of law and may request the termination of the organisation, he said.
Organisations coming under the effect of the law will have 90 days to submit their applications to the Minister of Interior. If an organisation receives funding from abroad for the purposes mentioned above, they are required to report the receipt of such funding to the National Tax and Customs Administration of Hungary within three days.
The bill also includes an immigration financing duty as a mark of social responsibility. Those who support such activities are required to pay a 25 per cent duty on any money transferred to them from abroad, Mr Tuzson said.
He drew attention to the fact that every organisation which comes under the effect of the law will be required to pay the above duty. The proceeds of the duty will be used for border protection purposes on a mandatory basis. Returns must be submitted by the end of the year, and the relevant amount must be paid by 30 June of the following year.
Exemption from the payment of the duty can be granted if the organisation proves that it does not use its funding for migration purposes or is engaged in humanitarian activities.
If the payment obligation is not fulfilled, a liability extending to double the amount of the duty may come into being.
Individuals who violate the interests of Hungarian national security or are a threat to public order may be issued with a restraining order which will keep them out of an eight-kilometre area of Hungary’s Schengen borders, he added.
He pointed out that the proposed legislation defines in detail which activities qualify as contrary to the interests of national security or as posing a threat to public order.
He highlighted that the bill treats this type of procedure as a procedure of the immigration authority.
The Minister has the right to extend the immigration restraining order to the entire territory of the country if the individual concerned is not a Hungarian national.
Exceptions to the above rule are Members of the European Parliament, Members of Parliament and persons acting as legal counsel in procedures under the asylum law.
Mr Tuzson said that this type of restraining order can be issued in a state of emergency due to mass immigration. He pointed out the term of the order is six months, but if the government extends the state of emergency due to mass immigration, the individual concerned may request a review of the former decision.
The Minister of State said that mass immigration had brought a major security risk to Europe, public security had deteriorated and the threat of terrorism had increased.
He also highlighted that the bill contains some cardinal provisions as well; without the adoption of these provisions the legislative package will not be able to attain its goal. He asked whether they can rely on the opposition which continuously denied and continues to deny the problem of immigration and the very existence of the quotas and the Soros plan, and continually attacked the protection of the border and the erection of the fence.
The government will, however, make every effort to protect Hungary, the Soros plan cannot prevail, its implementation must be prevented, and the relocation of migrants to Hungary is out of the question, he stressed.
Mr Tuzson said as far as they are concerned, Hungary comes first.
He stated that in the short term migration has a negative impact on our security, while in the long run it is detrimental to our welfare as well as to Christian civilisation, and will undermine our culture.
The Hungarian government has always taken this problem seriously: it has spent HUF 270 billion on the protection of the borders since 2015, built a fence on the southern border section, enacted legal border closure, and on the 1,100-kilometre Schengen border section Hungarian police officers and soldiers protect the border which is also the border of the EU. He found it regrettable that the amendment of the Fundamental Law had been frustrated by opposition Members of Parliament who had voted against it, thereby removing an important legal means in the fight for protecting our borders.
Security is a value, and on this there can be no compromise, Mr Tuzson said.
(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)
