“We must differentiate between migrant and migration, because Hungary is not against the people, but against the process of migration that is affecting the whole world”, Minister of Human Capacities Zoltán Balog told German conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

In an interview published in the Monday edition of the newspaper, the Minister stressed that the problem of immigration cannot be solved the way the European Union and a few other countries would like to. “Hungary will continue to strive to help people at the source of their problems”, he said.

Mr. Balog emphasised that he had always drawn attention to the fact that migrants are victims. “People shouldn’t decide out of hatred; it is much better to rationally think through how it may be possible to further reinforce national security”, he noted.

“The Government has set up a deputy state secretariat to help persecuted Christians and has given charity organisation hundreds of millions of forints, so it isn’t fair to accuse the country of being inhumane when it constructs a fence along its border to enable it to uphold European laws”, he said.

According to the Minister, the goal of the 2 October referendum on the mandatory relocation quota is to show that the majority of the population also believe that it falls within the national sphere of competence to decide whether or not we want to admit migrants. “The quota has no upper limit, so we must defend against it at the beginning. Otherwise we will not be able to decide who we want to live with at a later date either”, he added.

In reply to a question concerning what it would mean to the Government if the referendum is not valid, Mr. Balog said that “People who don’t go out to vote are passing the decision on to those who do, and it makes a difference with what percentage the referendum result is valid”.

When asked whether he regarded it as a success that Hungary is practically the only country in which extreme right wing forces have not gained strength since the beginning of the refugee crisis, the Minister replied with a resounding yes. According to Mr. Balog this indicates that in Hungary it is possible to express protest within a democratic framework. “70-80 percent of the population agree with the Government’s standpoint, but not all of them support Fidesz. If a Government is capable of representing general public sentiment, that is definitely a good thing”, he highlighted.

With relation to the poster campaign for the referendum he said that he would have gladly added that not every migrant is a terrorist or a rapist. “Despite this, what the posters state is fact”, he declared. “It is a fact that women are treated differently in the migrants’ countries of origin than they are in Christian states”, he said, referring to Cologne or Vienna. “On this basis it is natural that people are afraid. The Government’s goal is to draw attention to the dangers. People must know what they can do to guarantee the safety of their children. For instance, they can can go out and vote no at the 2 October referendum”, the Minister declared.

Mr. Balog also said that “Roma integration is such a major task that it would be difficult to also have to deal with migrant integration parallel to it. But we now have to take Roma integration even more seriously that we have so far. In 2011 the Government developed a Roma Strategy, which was acknowledged in Europe even by those who usually criticise Hungary. It would not be advantageous to have to shut down the programme”.

In reply to a question, Mr. Balog said that he doesn’t want to pit the Roma and the migrants against each other, but resources are limited and if more people have to share the same amount of funding then there will less per head to go around. “The European Union has already suggested that funding for the Roma should also be expanded to include immigrants, but without providing more funding for that purpose. The number of Roma students in higher education in Hungary has doubled and unemployment among Roma Hungarians has fallen from 39 percent to 28 percent, because the Government has applied every cent that it has been provided with by the EU”, he explained.

According to the Minister, integration is a terribly difficult task. “What the Hungarian Government is seeing in France and Germany encourages it to choose a different path. Although a few years ago German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted that multiculturalism doesn’t work, German society has become a multicultural one. There have been 13 different ethnic groups living in Hungary for centuries, we have succeeded in integrating all of them and there are also both positive and negative results with regard to solving the problem of Roma integration”, Mr. Balog said.

He also mentioned that Hungary is often still regarded as being ant-Semitic in the media despite the fact that Budapest’s Jewish community feels they are much safer in Hungary than in several other European countries.

(Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister/MTI)