Orbán: ‘All terrorists are migrants’

Christian Keszthelyi

According to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, although it is not an accepted notion, “the factual point is that all the terrorists are basically migrants … the question is when they migrated to the European Union,” the prime minister said in an interview with online politics daily politico.eu published today.

Hungaryʼs Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at the inauguration of MOLʼs butane plant in Tiszaújváros on November 10. (Photo: The Official Facebook page of Viktor Orbán)

Commenting on the Paris terror attacks and their aftermath in Europe, Orbán said that there is an “overwhelmingly logical” connection between terrorism and the arrival of Muslims to Europe in the last few months and over recent decades, politico.eu reports. “The majority of our leaders in the West deny the fact,” Orbán said, blaming “political correctness”, which destabilizes European politics by enlarging the “gap between the leaders and the people”, politico.eu reports.



According to the prime minister, the “number one job” following the events in Paris is “to defend the borders and to control who is coming in”, to Europe, politico.hu reports. “All of them present a security threat because we don’t know who they are. If you allow thousands or millions of unidentified persons into your house, the risk of … terrorism will significantly increase,” politico.eu quoted Orbán as saying.



Orbán told the daily that “we would like to save Schengen” and also the “liberties”, such as the freedom of movement inside the borders of the European Union, which is in danger due to the unregulated external borders.



The prime minister told the online daily that the European Union has done nothing more than react to “crisis after crisis, instead of having a concept”. In response to a query as to whether the European Union would exist in ten years, he told the daily that “it’s an open question”.



Orbán urged the European Union to call a new convention on the future of Europe and to “modify even the basic treaty”, proposing reforms that would tilt power back towards the nation states and away from the leaders in Brussels, who maintain a very "pro-United States of Europe position”, politico.eu reported.



Despite his support of Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his talk of Hungary’s “illiberal democracy”, Orbán told politico.eu that “Hungary’s place is [in the] West … we criticize them [the EU and NATO] because they are far from perfect, but the starting attitude of the Hungarians to Western institutions is always positive.”



On the notion of liberalism, Orbán told the online daily that “liberalism in Europe now concentrates not on freedom but on political correctness. It became a sclerotic ideology. Dogmatic, may I say. The liberals are enemies of freedom.” Orbán said liberals want to limit Hungary’s freedom to make its choices as a nation-state and added that liberalism has become part of mainstream politics. They fight against everybody who does not belong to the mainstream, but not to belong to the mainstream does not mean that you are not in favor of freedom – “just the opposite now,” politico.eu quoted Orbán.

Commenting on Hungary’s strengthening ties with Russia, Orbán said that “if you would like to have a relationship with the Russians based on principles, it will never work”, politico.eu reported. According to Orbán European and Russian principles are “impossible to harmonize. So put aside principles, ideologies and look at the interest, and find the common sense realpolitik agreements. That’s the Hungarian approach,” politico.eu quoted Orbán.



“Putin is someone you can cooperate with. He’s not an easy man. He has no personal feelings [for] you…. He is not a man who has a known personality, so don’t imagine him as you like to imagine Western leaders,” Orbán said, according to politico.eu.