In his evaluation of the Valetta EU summit, the Prime Minister told public service television news channel M1 that a once proud Europe “is begging for security”, instead of protecting its borders with its own strength. Viktor Orbán also reiterated that Hungary must reject the importation of a million migrants from Turkey.

The Prime Minister said that the situation appears to be increasingly worrying: while migrants are arriving in the territory of the European Union in groups of five, six or even ten thousand a day without any kind of control, “the series of meetings that lead nowhere” continues.

Mr. Orbán pointed out that not only has Europe come no closer to a solution, but “we are floating into dangerous waters”, because the summit’s only “resolution through acclamation” – given that no formal decision was adopted – was that they will hold talks with Turkey as a strategic partner under any conditions.

He said that in theory this is acceptable, but in this form it is a strategic error because, in his view, Europe must not find itself in a situation in which it is unable to resolve an issue through its own resources, hoping to see its security guaranteed by a third party. Even if it does find itself in such a situation, it must not admit it.

“Europe appears to have given up its plan, its dream, its duty to be able to protect its own borders with its own strength, and is instead hoping […] to secure protection through diplomatic negotiations with the Turks”, he said. The Prime Minister said that a once proud Europe is compelled to play the role of a beggar: instead of building up its own strength, it is begging for security from someone else.

Mr. Orbán said that he had warned Europe against doing this. The Hungarian position is that the EU should only engage in negotiations with Turkey once it is able “to build a sustainable line of defence” from its own resources.

If this line of defence is not the southern border of Greece, he added, it should be built further north, to make it clear that “while we are happy to cooperate with Turkey, because then we could both make more progress”, it is not an absolute necessity to reach an agreement, because we are also able to protect our countries on our own. He said that Europe had failed to take this option, and had rejected the Hungarian proposal.

The Prime Minister also mentioned that, while “no one has ever decided on this, no one has ever approved this”, a plan is unfolding for one million migrants to be transported from Turkey to Europe and distributed around Europe. Hungary must reject this, he said.

He added that it is simply inconceivable that one million people should be transported from Turkey to Europe and then be distributed among countries which never voted for this decision.

(Prime Minister's Office)