“International institutions that are making decisions and adopting documents that encourage migration processes are making a huge mistake”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said in a telephone statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Friday.
The Minister is attending a session of the UN Security Council in New York, where the main topic of discussion is handling the effects of climate-related disasters on international peace and security.
Mr. Szijjártó said that in his speech he will be explaining that global water scarcity, rising sea levels, desertification, the falling yield of agricultural production areas and the demographic explosion being experienced in certain regions is leading to the commencement of new illegal migration processes. “In the upcoming period, transcontinental waves of migration will increase”, he added.
“According to forecasts, by 2050 there will be some 200 million people on the road as a result of various environmental reasons. A total of 3.3 million illegal migrants arrived in Europe between 2015 and 2017, 90 percent of them from 34 countries, the population of which will increase by 640 million over the course of the next ten years”, he explained.
“Accordingly, International institutions that are making decisions and adopting documents that inspire migration processes are making a huge mistake”, the Foreign Minister said.
“The UN Global Compact for Migration represents a huge risk to the world because it regards migration as a human right, and determines with relation to every country that it will definitely be either a source country, transit country or target country for migration”, he pointed out.
According to the Minister, the chance of new waves of migration is continuously increasing as a result of environmental processes and the demographic explosion, and for this reason it is important that instead of encouraging waves of migration the international community should concentrate on how they may be prevented. “This is why all of the root causes of migration must be handled, be they security, political, economic or environmental reasons”, he added.
“This is why the Brussels migration policy, which sets quotas, and by doing so is leading to the commencement of new processes, is a major mistake, and this is why the UN, which by adopting the Global Compact on Migration has provided further encouragement for new waves of migration, has made a huge mistake”, Mr. Szijjártó stressed.
As he explained, these documents and policies are ignoring the rights of countries that do not want to be the source, transit or target countries of migration. “And Hungary wants to be neither, and we expect the international community to respect our right to do so”, the Foreign Minister declared.
(MTI)
