FM: Hungary will not bow to pressure or blackmail over migrant quotas

“We will not yield to the blackmail of either Soros’ NGOs, western (European) governments or Brussels,” Minister Szíjjártó said. “We will not implement the compulsory settlement quota and we will continue to oppose it as we did so far.”

The Foreign Minister has hit back at claims by Italy's new coalition that countries that don't take in their share of illegal migrants should be punished.

Péter Szíjjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said Hungary will not bow to pressure or blackmail over the migrant quota system.

“We will not yield to the blackmail of either Soros’ NGOs, western (European) governments or Brussels,” Minister Szíjjártó said. “We will not implement the compulsory settlement quota and we will continue to oppose it as we did so far.”

In an interview published in yesterday’s Die Welt, Minister Szíjjártó said it would be pointless to speak of a common European stance so far as the EU’s external borders are not guarded properly. He added that the answer lies in the hands of the member states, not in reinforcing the EU’s border and coast guard agency Frontex which he said “functions as a travel agency”.

Italy also proposed that the migrants it receives should be distributed among EU member states based on an automatic quota system, an idea Hungary firmly refused.

New Italian foreign minister Luigi di Maio said Italy has been living in permanent migration alert, mainly due to the “indifference” of countries such as Hungary. Di Maio proposed that member states who do not take in their share of migrants should be severely penalized.

Photo credit: lokal.hu