Prime Minister Orbán to UN General Assembly: Step Up Cooperation on the Migration Crisis 2015. 10. 08. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Wednesday to urge greater international cooperation to manage the current migration crisis. Europe will not be able to handle this burden alone, the prime minister emphasized, and if left alone, Europe will be destabilized. [blog post]
Europe Finally Confronting the Real Problems at the Root of the Migration Crisis 2015. 09. 30. After months of heated debate in Europe, the question of how the European Union should handle the migration crisis came down to one simple clash of priorities. [Blog post]
Hungary’s Response to the Refugee Crisis 2015. 09. 22. The contrast between Kim Lane Scheppele’s denunciation of Hungary’s migration policies (“Orbán’s Police State,” Politico.eu, September 14, 2015) and Melik Kaylan’s balanced commentary (“Spare a Thought for Hungary,” Politico.eu, September 15, 2015) could not be more striking. Scheppele systematically distorts Hungary’s measured and compassionate response to the migration crisis, while Kaylan thoughtfully analyzes the roots of the calamity and challenges readers to empathize with the plight facing Hungary and other countries on the frontlines of Europe’s biggest migration crisis since World War II. [Guest post by Réka Szemerkényi]
Protect the Border! 2015. 09. 20. On Tuesday, September 15th, Hungary completed the protective border fence on its southern frontier with Serbia. Its completion closes the so-called ‘green’ border that has seen more than 170 thousand illegal crossings in 2015, making it the busiest migration route into the European Union and Schengen Area.
Hungary Says Border Protection First, Quotas Second 2015. 09. 09. 159,968. That’s the number, as of September 2, of illegal border crossings that Hungary has seen in 2015. That’s more than three and a half times the number that came in all of 2014. Nearly all of those crossings currently take place on Hungary’s southern border with Serbia, which is a southeast border of the Schengen Area, the so-called West-Balkan route. Some 93 percent of these people request asylum even though under the Geneva Convention, asylum seekers do not have to cross the border illegally. They can do it at the official border crossings. [Blog post by András Gyürk]
Pure Farce 2015. 06. 29. After Thursday’s debate in the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), an obvious conclusion can be drawn: the left-wing parliamentary groups don’t even attempt to maintain the appearance of objectivity and equal standards in evaluating alleged threats to the rule of law. [Blog post]
Hungary’s Tough Road to Economic Recovery 2015. 04. 17. Hungary is undergoing an economic recovery. [Blog post by Dr. Ildikó Pelczné Gáll]
Remembering Prime Minister József Antall 2015. 04. 15. At the beginning of April each year, Hungary remembers József Antall, who served as our nation’s prime minister from May 1990 until his death in December 1993. Born April 8, 1932, he was our first democratically elected prime minister after the defeat of communism, and we commemorated him this year with the unveiling of a bronze bust set in the wing of the European Parliament that bears his name. [Blog post by András Gyürk]
EU support for Middle East needed to prevent ‘new wave of immigration’ 2015. 03. 26. The EU needs to reach a consensus on the 'human catastrophe' being perpetuated by ISIS, writes György Hölvényi in the Parliament Magazine.
