© unknownHungarian FM Peter Szijjarto
The "historic challenges" the bloc faces, such as terrorism, immigration, energy security, Brexit and the Ukraine situation, "have stayed with us" during the past year, Szijjarto noted. With 28 sovereign states comprising the EU, serious debate on these issues is natural, the minister said. It is antidemocratic and unacceptable to call those insisting on the right to discussion un-European, he said.
Concerning terrorism in particular, Szijjarto suggested that it was now "an everyday phenomenon" and said that: "Hungary refuses to accept it as something we have to live with".
"We expect Europe's institutions to act against it at last," he said. He also argued that terrorism was a direct consequence of "1.5 million illegal migrants coming to Europe without any control in the past two years; this movement does offer an opportunity for terrorist organisations to send their fighters without any problem".
He insisted that rather than advocating policies "encouraging migrants to leave for Europe", the EU should negotiate with countries in Africa and help remove the causes of migration. "Europe's security will start in Africa," he said.
The Hungarian government aims to "stop immigration" while the foreign minister of Luxembourg "advocates managing it", Szijjarto told Hungarian news agency MTI. He added that "this is a fundamental and unresolvable conflict" with Jean Asselborn, who said in a recent interview that the European Union's refugee policy was doomed to failure. In his interview, Asselborn called for a legal mechanism to facilitate immigration to the EU.
Comment: The EU migrant issue has not, so far, been solved by policy, homogenization nor ad hoc control. Airing issues and ramifications to which Hungary is unwilling to be subjected, it has been repeatedly condemned and ostracized by the EU. See also: