Hungarian PM's call for halt to immigration makes opposition furious

Many of Hungary's opposition parties have issued angry statements on Monday in the wake of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's demand that economic immigration be halted.

The prime minister, speaking to Hungary's television channel M1's news magazine on Sunday from Paris where he attended the solidarity rally, called on Brussels to initiate a strict policy limiting immigration to the European Union.

"Economic immigration," he said, "is bad for Europe ... causing only trouble and danger to Europeans, and it has to be halted." "We do not want significant minorities whose cultures differ from ours to be among us. We want to keep Hungary for Hungarians." As long as I'm prime minister, he said, I will not allow Hungary to become an immigration target destination.

While in response, the international media has pointed out that at least 300,000 Hungarians have left Hungary and become economic migrants elsewhere in Europe, the Hungarian website Portfolio.hu has cited Hungary's sales of "residency bonds" to wealthy non-EU residents allowing them full access to the European Union. According to Portfolio.hu Hungary has sold 2,000 of these bonds to immigrants, pocketing over half a billion euros.

The Together Party charged that the move merely added to Hungary's international isolation. Party official Nora Hajdu said Hungary's problem was not immigration but the emigration of vast numbers of Hungarians, who have had to go abroad to make a living.

Liberal Party chief Gabor Fodor agreed. Hungary's real problem is its effort to seek allies in the East, in particular, its invitation to Russian President Putin to visit Hungary while the EU continues to impose sanctions against Russia and NATO views it as a security risk, he said. Fodor took the opportunity to apologize to all minorities in Europe and Hungary for the PM's statements. Terrorism is not about cultural differences but about terrorists, who are perfectly willing to kill people from their own culture as we saw in their shooting of a Moslem police officer, Fodor said.

The Democratic Coalition Party accused Orban of mouthing the extremist views of the far right "Jobbik" Party. Party official Agnes Vadai said she found Orban's statements all the more infuriating as they were made during the "United Rally" in Paris honoring all victims and all cultures. Vadai charged that Orban's statement was a move to elicit Jobbik support.

The political party Dialogue for Hungary demanded that Orban retract the statement. Party official Timea Szabo called on Orban to stop "pandering to the far right" and going against the will of the Hungarian people. She also accused the prime minister of disrespecting the hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who have moved to other countries, because of his party's "economic policy that has driven them into poverty."

Hungarian Socialist Party chief Jozsef Tobias said that while Orban had attended the rally in Paris he apparently had no idea what it was about. Tobias said that Orban's statement on halting immigration went against the openness, liberty, and freedom of speech the million people on the Paris streets were advocating. Orban had sent a message to the British Prime Minister and German Chancellor to expel the hundreds of thousands of Hungarians working in their countries, Tobias added. Endit