The stance taken by the Visegrád countries against the mandatory migrant quotas has proved to be successful, Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács said on the Friday morning news programme of the public service television channel M1.

Mr Kovács reiterated: the Visegrád countries agreed on the rejection of the mandatory quotas, and their action against the contemplated measure was also successful. Early Friday morning an agreement was reached at the meeting of EU heads of state and government that the Interior Ministers of the Member States will determine voluntary quotas instead of mandatory ones, and that Hungary and Bulgaria will be treated separately.

The Government Spokesperson took the view that this agreement is „an achievement in itself”, and reiterated that Hungary has been making efforts for months to make the EU recognise that one third of the migration pressure on Europe affects Hungary; this is where one third of illegal migrants are registered.

Mr Kovács added: Europe’s immigration policy in the past few decades has not been a success story, the current regulations raise a number of issues, and are far from suitable for resolving the situation which would require a pan-European response. The EU should also specifically look into the need that, in the case of economic migrants, the Members States should retain their freedom to decide whether they need economic migrants or not, he said.

We take the stance that we would not like to turn Hungary into a target for economic migrants, the Government Spokesperson stated.

(Prime Minister's Office)