“Migration must be acknowledged as a security risk, and instead of encouraging it we should be talking about how to stop it and concentrate on handling its causes”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó said on Hungarian M1 television’s Thursday morning current affairs program.

According to Mr. Szijjártó, this is the positive shift that the Government regards as necessary. “Because without this Hungary will be exiting the series of negotiations on the UN’s migration package”, he stated.

Both the 2016 declaration that serves as the basis for the negotiations and the recent statement by the UN Secretary General describe migration as a good and unstoppable phenomenon, and this basic position is at odds with Hungary’s standpoint according to which migration is a global challenge that is bad and dangerous, and “there can be no question that it must be stopped”, the Minister said. “The UN’s Secretary General has to all intents and purposes already announced the result before any of the organisation’s member states have been able to have a say in the matter”, he declared.

Mr. Szijjártó objected to the fact that both the declaration and the statement aim to reduce the criminalisation of illegally crossing borders and ease the conditions for admitting migrants, as well as forcing countries that are not currently affected by migration to also admit migrants. “It would represent a huge security risk if illegally crossing a state border were to be regarded as a law-abiding act, because a country’s ability to defend its borders is a fundamental question of sovereignty. One of the most important elements of statehood is that a state has a territory over which it has sovereignty, and for that sovereignty to be absolute, it must be able to defend the borders that surround that territory”, he explained.

Speaking later on Kossuth Radio’s “180 Minutes” program, the Foreign Minister also said: “There are conditions relating to crossing a border, and if someone crosses a border illegally, they are breaking the laws of the country they enter”. “If this crime is made legal, it would mean a major risk to every country’s security”, he added.

(MTI)