The “Budapest Process” was inaugurated more than a quarter-century ago to manage, promote, and facilitate migration from Third World countries — most of them Muslim — into the European Union. The choice of name for the project is unfortunate from the standpoint of the current government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, which is adamantly opposed to the very migration that the Budapest Process is attempting to push on Hungary and Europe.

In the following interview, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó outlines the most recent session of the Budapest Process in Istanbul, and describes the resistance of the Visegrad Four + 2 (Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Austria, and Italy) to any further mass immigration into Europe.

Many thanks to CrossWare for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

0:24 Good morning Mr. Foreign Minister! —Kiss your hands, good morning! It was the next session of

0:27 the Budapest Process last week in Istanbul. You said it the week before: you were expecting

0:31 big disagreements, and that expectation got confirmed. —If you will allow me, in a few words

0:36 let’s remember why is our capital city’s name is in this process.

0:40 1993 was the year when the representatives

0:44 of the EU and the leaders of the Silk Road countries first met

0:48 right here in Budapest in 1993,

0:52 and they had discussions about the different ways of legal migration

0:56 and its necessity. —So this is how we got into this process by name, anyway.

1:00 So yesterday in Istanbul, again everything was about

1:04 “how great migration is”,

1:08 “how everybody needs migration” and how “every country must

1:12 participate, one way or another”. Nobody spoke

1:16 a single word — until we spoke up, of course —

1:20 about the safety risks posed by migration, that it is every country’s inalienable right

1:24 to determine whether they want to participate or not

1:28 in the migration processes. Every country’s right to determine

1:32 whether it wants to be the starting point, transit stage or destination for migration.

1:36 And that it is also a national right NOT to choose any of those above,

1:40 and such decisions must be respected by the rest of the countries.

1:44 Yesterday the goal was obviously to have the UN’s

1:48 Global Migration Package, if they could not push it on everybody

1:52 in the frame of a global folk festival, then now

1:56 they try to sneak it through piece by piece. Yesterday they attempted to have

2:00 a closing document signed which referred to

2:04 the UN’s global package, and the national competences

2:08 were not emphasized at all. And in which they generated a context

2:12 that stated again that “migration is the right answer for the challenges ahead.”

2:16 We are thinking, of course, just the opposite.

2:20 We were able to spoil the unanimous acceptance,

2:24 because the four Visegrad countries, Austria and Italy did not sign

2:28 this document, stating that migration does present security concerns,

2:32 and it is really a national competence to make a decision

2:36 on whom we let into our countries and with whom we

2:40 wish to live together, and who are those we do not. —As the document was

2:44 not unanimously accepted, and Hungary did not sign it, what kind of power does it have?

2:48 You see, such a document has power when

2:52 it is unanimously accepted, then later it will become

2:56 a reference point in international politics and the legal world.

3:00 Just like they tried to do with the UN migration package. This is what we were saying all along,

3:04 here and abroad too: “We have already seen this movie,”

3:08 how it transforms a voluntary thing

3:12 into mandatory one. For example, the settlement quotas

3:16 in Europe. Which also started out as voluntary and suddenly became

3:20 mandatory. They wanted to play the very same trick

3:24 — the bureaucrats of New York [UN], similar to their Brussels counterparts —

3:28 with the UN’s migration package, where they emphasized all along that this is

3:32 not a legally binding document, while in the meantime the word “obligation”

3:36 and the phrase “commits itself”, were used exactly eighty times, yes,

3:40 eighty times in the document. Moreover, that every

3:44 single country must create an action plan,

3:48 on how to implement the decisions of the UN’s migration package.

3:52 So the power of these texts is

3:56 that they can begin to refer to them.

4:00 But because they were not accepted unanimously,

4:04 at least in those countries who did not join these pacts,

4:08 they will have a hard time attaining that effect. It shows they are trying hard,

4:12 because the sessions at different levels of the EU are almost nothing else, but

4:16 practically all phrasing of the decisions refers

4:20 to the UN’s Global Migration Package and how they are trying to smuggle

4:24 elements of it into EU laws. But we block all of these,

4:28 and if necessary we will raise a veto. —The Migration Commissioner

4:32 of the European Union, Dimitris Avramopoulos, also gave a speech and, practically speaking,

4:36 one could interpret that he threatened those countries that would not

4:40 cooperate on the issue of migration. Why does

4:44 the leadership of the EU not accept the fact that there are countries

4:48 that insist that this is a national authority? Partly because the European Commission

4:52 has role confusion, because the European Commission has been operating

4:56 a political plenum for the last couple of years, but that is complete breach

5:00 of the rules and treaties. The European Commission should not be a political

5:04 institution, but the legal guardian of the treaties.

5:08 It should not make political statements. For a political body the EU has the

5:12 European Council, which has the nation’s leaders as members.

5:16 That is the political body of the EU. On the other hand, we should not forget

5:20 that George Soros’ people are sitting everywhere

5:24 on the EU Commission. Migration Commissioner Avramopoulos also has an extremely good

5:28 relationship with him [Soros], and he does not willingly talk about when

5:32 he was Defense Minister in Greece, he was the first one who built a fence

5:36 at the border. Because when he was the Defense Minister in Greece, at his order

5:40 they build a fence on the border between Greece and Turkey.

5:44 So he is exactly the same person who now criticizes

5:48 the Hungarian government because we have an anti-migration stance and we built a fence,

5:52 similar what he built on their southern border. If there is any

5:56 proof of hypocrisy and double standards, it is right there in the person of Avramopoulos,

6:00 and it very clearly shows. —Mr. Minister, you also had a variety of discussions

6:04 Before, during and after the sessions of the

6:08 Budapest Process. What were the most important topics?

6:12 I met with the Macedonian, Bosnian, Serbian and

6:16 the Croatian Ministers of Foreign Affairs.

6:20 And it become clear… and with the Greek migration minister, too,

6:24 with whom we have already had many public battles, and I thought

6:28 it would be better if we met in person. And after talking to every

6:32 — let’s say Western Balkan — minister, it became clear that the threat

6:36 of migration is here. All those numbers that show

6:40 a sharp drop in migration belong in the category of fairy tales. To Greece

6:44 there is a continuous inflow of migrants. On the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina,

6:48 25,000 illegal migrants are staying. It represents a stupendous

6:52 internal security risk. Croatia must take intensive measures

6:56 to defend their territory on the Bosnian-Croatian border.

7:00 To Serbia the inflow is also continuous.

7:04 On the Hungarian border, besides the attempts to break through the fence,

7:08 there are more and more attempts to use different transportation

7:12 to cross the Serbian-Hungarian border. It is also clear

7:16 that after the global coalition terminated ISIS,

7:20 — of which coalition Hungary is also a member — after it was able to be victorious over them,

7:24 then the Islamic State changed tactics and is using its European mercenaries,

7:28 who have European citizenship, now they begin to infiltrate the migrants and return.

7:32 Over the weekend they stopped a terrorist attack organized by ISIS members who returned

7:36 from there. For us it was especially important, because the Veszprém city girls’ handball team

7:40 and its fans were there in North Macedonia.

7:44 And the Bosnian Minister [of Foreign Affairs] also reported

7:48 that more terrorists who can be tied to ISIS were

7:52 recently captured on their territory. It shows clearly that those mercenary terrorists want to

7:56 come back to Europe, because they hold the citizenship of various European countries.

8:00 So for us, it is more and more important to strengthen our borders now,

8:04 to take all necessary measures to block infiltration by these people and not allow them

8:08 to commit any terror attacks in Europe. —Mr. Minister, thank you for the conversation.