A recent poll published by Nézőpont Institute on Monday, June 19th, revealed that 77% of Hungarian voters reject the European Union’s migrant redistribution scheme, a number that also includes the majority of leftist voters in the country. Meanwhile, following Warsaw’s similar announcement, PM Orbán also said he was searching for ways to neutralize the upcoming Migration Pact.
The question posed to a representative sample of voting-aged Hungarians asked them whether they agree that the EU should not relocate asylum-seekers to Hungary without the consent of the government. Overall, 77% agreed with the statement and only 17% didn’t, taking Brussel’s side in the dispute.
Unsurprisingly, the supporters of the ruling Christian-conservative Fidesz party were the most opposed to the redistribution plan, with over 93% rejecting it. In contrast, leftist voters produced a curious result: only 32% of them supported the forced relocation of migrants, while the majority, 58%, rejected it.
Earlier forms of the migrant quota system were also rejected by the Hungarian people after the mechanism was first introduced during the peak of the 2015-2016 migration crisis. In October 2016, Hungary held a referendum asking the same question, wherein 98% of voters rejected forced relocations—even though the vote was annulled due to low turnout (44%). Nonetheless, due to consistent opposition from Central Europe, Brussels eventually dropped the plan. Until now.
The new migrant redistribution scheme—called ‘compulsory solidarity’—was adopted by the EU’s interior ministers earlier this month and is awaiting final approval in the European Council. If signed into law, the plan would force EU members to choose between accepting a certain number of asylum seekers every year or paying financial contributions set at €20,000 per migrant.
The main criticism of the opponents of the mechanism is that it was adopted through qualified majority voting, which essentially means that it was forced on all member states with no country having individual veto power to stop it or to use it as leverage to negotiate a personal opt-out.
In the end, seven member states did not support the relocation scheme with their votes, with Poland and Hungary voting against it, and five others abstaining. Now, even if the final decision will be legally binding for all member states, Poland has already announced that if push comes to shove, it will simply not comply with it.
But the fight is not yet over, as Warsaw also said that it will be building a “coalition” of opponents in the European institutions in an attempt to stop the current form of the Migration Pact from being introduced. In this regard, Budapest is shaping up to be its primary ally, just as expected.
In a radio interview on Monday morning, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his government has “no intention of implementing” the compulsory solidarity mechanism and that he’s consulting with other countries in search of a diplomatic solution.
Explaining his position, Orbán argued that it should be up to the sovereign decision of all member states to decide on their own migration policies, instead of being undemocratically forced into accepting others’ views on the issue.
We are not saying that the Hungarians are right and [others] are wrong. … We only ask the people in Brussels not to dictate to Hungary who we, as Hungarians, live together with. They should not dictate what our migration policy should be, because it is exclusively Hungary’s internal affair.
