Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused European Union leaders of encouraging illegal immigration and asking Europeans to put migrants ahead of their own families.
“Many believe that Europe is in Brussels, and that from there they can tell the member-states who should do what,” he told a Slovenian Democratic Party congress in Maribor.
“We could also see where this mentality led in 2015, when it let migration loose on us. As a result of this mentality, the free movement of labour has been replaced with the free movement of illegal migrants.”
The typically forthright premier described the dispute between the globalist politicians who enjoy ascendancy in the EU and the more nation-state focused, conservative-leaning governments in central and eastern Europe in stark terms:
“We cannot fail to mention that we are all – both you and we – in the midst of a major European debate,” he explained.
“To simplify the essence of this debate, the question here is this: migrants or our own families?”
The Fidesz leader claimed the root of the migrant crisis lies in the differences of approach between traditional conservatives and globalist progressives to the West’s alleged demographic challenges.
“Many in Europe today believe that the problems of an ageing Europe – in which fewer and fewer children are being born – should be solved with immigrants,” he observed.
“We on the other side embrace a different approach … we should instead mobilise our own internal, physical, psychological and biological reserves, so that we can survive as nations.”
Orbán described how the pro-mass immigration advocates often support their position by invoking “European values”. He said these “are often mentioned, but frequently as though they were kept in a vault somewhere in Brussels.”
In fact, Orbán said, “European values are not carved in lifeless stone, but into beating hearts: in each nation’s own language, in line with its own culture.”
The prime minister also gave some indication of the ideology which, in his view, underpins elite thinking in the EU, in comments praising his Slovenian host, Janez Janša.
He described Janša as “an uncompromising democrat” and a “freedom fighter”, who had “seen enough of the world to know how far the shadow of a system like communism reaches”.
“We Hungarians are also well aware that the post-communist world has two laws,” he added.
“Communist comrades cannot be destroyed, they only transform; and if we throw them out the door, they will come back in through the window.”
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