Sweden Demands Sanctions on Hungary, Nations Refusing Third World Migration

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KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images
Virginia Hale

EU nations which refuse to open their doors to third world migration should have to “pay a price”, the Swedish Prime Minister has said.

In an interview with local media at the weekend, Stefan Löfven said he wants to see sanctions on countries unwilling to take part in a migrant quota system, claiming it was ‘not sustainable” that Hungary refuses to house, feed, and clothe a Brussels-dictated share of illegal immigrants who reach Europe.

“It cannot be that responsibility is shared by one or two or three countries.  We have to help each other,” he told the establishment newspaper Dagens Nyheter, stating that the EU must impose a common migration policy on the bloc’s member states.

“Hungary is one of the countries that receives the most funding from the EU, and it is saying no, we will not take responsibility with relation to migration,” the social democrat said, adding that Brussels should cut funding to nations which reject mass immigration.

Budapest hit back at Löfven’s claim that the nation was neglecting responsibility on the topic of migrants, with foreign minister Peter Szijjártó pointing out that border fences rolled out by the Hungarian government in 2015 are “defending western and northern Europe” from illegal immigration.

“What is at stake at the May elections is that politicians should be elected to the European Parliament who want security in Europe and not resettlement quotas, not no-go zones, not gang wars, not increasing crime and not a threat of terrorism,” the minister told Hungarian news agency MTI.

Slamming Löfven as a “pro-immigration politician who also wants to force illegal immigrants onto Hungary, and wants to punish the Hungarians for saying no to the mandatory resettlement quota”, the minister added: “The Swedish Prime Minister has already made his decision [on migration policy], but we too have the right to decide.”

Prior to a meeting of EU leaders last September, Löfven reportedly showed visible signs of “anger” at some member states’ reluctance to agree to a common asylum policy, which would see illegal immigrants who manage to reach European shores spread out across the bloc.

The Swedish leader has repeatedly claimed that migrants will be “less of a burden” to the continent as a whole if there is a permanent mechanism to spread them throughout the bloc, ignoring the argument from Visegrád leaders that sharing out asylum seekers trafficked into the EU while failing to secure the borders makes the illegal immigration problem worse.

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