Viktor Orban speaking at the EU Parliament.
Credit: Cristi Dangeorge – Shutterstock
EU member state threatens to provide train tickets for refugees to travel directly to Brussels, sparking a massive outcry. A defiant minister of the country says ‘If Brussels wants migrants, they will get them.’
Hungary has escalated its argument with the European Union about the appropriate amount of migrants to welcome. The debate has been going on for a while. Hungary would transfer migrants to Brussels, according to a minister of Viktor Orban’s, if the EU keeps pressuring Budapest to take in more asylum seekers.
‘If Brussels wants more migrants, they can have them’
At a news conference on Thursday, August 23, Gergely Gulyás remained uncompromising, telling reporters that ‘Brussels wants to force us to let migrants in at all costs. After the asylum procedure, we will take all migrants at the Hungarian border giving them the opportunity to be transported to Brussels voluntarily and free of charge,’ he said in response to Brussels’ demand. He continued by telling reporters that if Brussels wanted more migrants, he would send them to the European Parliament with a one-way train ticket so they could directly negotiate the terms of their care with the Commission.
Hungary is taking retaliatory action after Budapest was fined €200 million by the EU’s highest court in June for persistently violating refugee regulations. Additionally, Hungary was mandated to pay an extra €1 million for every day that it disobeys the court’s decision. Hungary, though, has resisted giving in. Mr. Orban called the court’s ruling ‘outrageous and unacceptable’ at the time. ‘Illegal migrants are more important to the Brussels bureaucrats than their own European citizens,’ he said.
