Hungarian PM urges high turnout at referendum on keeping out migrants

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday urged voters to support his anti-migrant policy and to vote in a referendum rejecting the European Union's settlement quota.

Speaking ahead of a government-mandated referendum scheduled for Oct. 2, Orban called turnout a national and not a right wing/left wing issue.

Addressing the first autumn session of parliament on Monday, he warned that if Brussels found itself unable to set national settlement quotas it would try to convince cities and towns with left-wing administrations to accept asylum seekers.

Orban also warned against what he saw as increased terrorism with the influx of people from the war-torn Middle East while painting a picture of Europe losing its identity and being swallowed up by immigrants.

Brussels, he said, believed that with a population of 440 million, Europe could easily absorb a few million migrants.

"They're wrong," Orban said.

"That's an illusion and naive self-deceit -- things are going to get worse, not better," he added.

Most opposition parties voiced opposition to the referendum.

Bertalan Toth, who heads the Hungarian Socialist Party parliamentary group, called on potential voters to stay home. The European Union holds the only potential solution to the migration question and contrary to what Orban has said, it is not to blame for the crisis.

He charged that four million Hungarians were living below the poverty line, while education and employment policy had failed, leading to mass emigration, which the government was ignoring.

Speaking for the green LMP party, parliamentary group chief Erzsebet Schmuck charged the government with underestimating the intelligence of the public with its hate campaign, in which the government had spent months posting billboards and airing television ads that charge the migrants with violence and disrespect for local values among other vices.

All European countries need to participate in supporting people fleeing war, she added.

Schmuck said the referendum had much more to do with sidestepping real problems such as poverty and inequality than exerting Hungary's right to reject migrants.

Timea Szabo, co-chair of the left-wing PM party said she would have preferred the prime minister to speak of the hundreds of thousands of hungry children, the exodus of doctors and nurses from Hungary, alleged corruption at the National Bank of Hungary, and the failings of the education system.

She too called on voters not to participate in the referendum.

Only Gabor Vona, chair of the far right Jobbik party agreed with the referendum and called on voters to reject the migrant influx. Unless enough people get out and vote "no" to the migrants the referendum will not get the 50 percent participation needed to be valid and that will hand Brussels a powerful argument since it would mean that Hungary did not reject the quotas.

At the same time, Vona said that Western Europe was already beyond rescue, for multiculturalism there was a reality, giving the people no choice about the kind of society they wished to live in. Central and Eastern Europe can still do something about it, he said. Endit