“It is understandable that the people of Hungary were expecting a solution to the migration situation from their own national government and the Hungarian Government protected and continues to protect its own border, which is also the external border of the Schengen Area, accordingly”, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó told Hungarian news agency MTI on Friday in reaction to statements by the President of the European Parliament (EP).

In an interview with Brussels news portal Politico, Martin Schultz explained: The “right-wing nationalist” governments in Poland and Hungary aren’t remotely interested in pressing ahead with European integration but are focused on purely short-term tactics despite their awareness of the benefits of a stronger EU. Mr. Schultz expressed his concern with the complacency of those who dismiss the likes of Viktor Orbán as “just a few nutcases calling Europe into question”. According to the EP President, “EU institutions are often prevented from coming up with solutions by governments in the nation states who don’t want a solution”. “Twenty states are refusing to get involved in allocating places for refugees and then in the next breath they’re criticizing the EU for a crisis which wouldn’t even exist if these peoples had done their bit”, Mr. Schultz said. The EP President listed the terrorist threat and the refugee crisis, as well as the possibility of Great Britain exiting the EU and the increasingly wide fault lines within the continent, as the main problems facing Europe today.

With relation to the above, Mr. Szijjártó said he felt Mr. Schultz was accusing the people of Europe and the legitimate governments they had elected of being responsible for the illegal immigration crisis. What the EP President is saying is “simply ridiculous and absurd”, he declared.

According to the Foreign Minister, the people of Europe had looked on as “Martin Schultz and his colleagues sat in comfortable rooms speaking about illegal immigration for months on end, and then when the meetings were over nothing happened”. Accordingly, it is understandable that the people of Hungary were expecting a solution to the migration situation from their own national government and the Hungarian Government protected and continues to protect its own border, which is also the external border of the Schengen Area, accordingly”, he stated, adding that a strong Europe can only be made up of strong Member States.

“Solidarity doesn’t mean allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants into Europe in an uncontrolled manner. Martin Schultz is correct on one point: the terrorist threat is one of the most serious challenges facing Europe. The Hungarian Government does not want to import the threat of terrorism and decreasing public safety, even if this is something that Martin Schultz is not happy about. We will always remain sincere and will never jump on the bandwagon with the hypocrites”, Mr. Szijjártó said.

In the Foreign Minister’s opinion, Martin Schultz is not happy with twenty countries, twenty governments, twenty nations in the European Union because their opinions differ from his. This is a “rather strange way of thinking from the President of the European Parliament”, he said, adding that Europe’s undoing is being brought about by hypocrisy and hypocrites like Mr. Schultz.

(MTI)