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Zoltan Kovacs, spokesman for the Hungarian government, responds to a Bloomberg QuickTake article published on June 1, 2018.

To the Editor:

Re “Why Hungary and Poland Rattle Europe’s Liberal Order: QuickTake” (June 1, 2018):

The article asserts that Prime Minister Viktor Orban is “the key figure” in a populist wave creating tensions that threaten to “divide Europe.” The author goes on to list the usual litany of charges, painting a skewed picture of today’s Hungary and, by extension, distorts the meaning of what’s happening in the many parts of Europe that are saying no to unbridled, mass immigration.

These QuickTake articles are intended, according to Bloomberg, to provide “context and clarity.” Allow me to help you with a little more context and clarity.

George Soros, in your account, is the “philanthropist” and his Open Society Foundation, “one of the world’s biggest funders of NGOs,” is being forced to “decamp from Budapest to Berlin” under political pressure, part of a “crackdown against non-governmental organizations.”

In fact, few discerning observers would call this work philanthropy. It’s a fund for ideologically driven political activism. Under the so-called “crackdown,” the Soros-funded Open Society network has come under stricter regulations affecting groups that survive almost exclusively on foreign funding to carry out activities that are blatantly partisan and drive an agenda that seeks to influence political outcomes. These groups have no democratic mandate but represent instead the very ideological interests of their foreign funder. Over the past several years, the U.S. and other western democracies have been consumed by the controversy that a foreign power may be meddling in their free elections. Then it should surprise no one that countries -- Hungary is not alone in this -- are imposing tighter rules on these foreign-funded, political groups.

What is the interest of Soros, their foreign funder? Chief among them is a policy of pro-immigration, driving an agenda that -- as he has written explicitly -- would open Europe’s borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants every year.

Has anyone bothered to ask the citizens of Europe whether they would support opening the continent’s borders to mass immigration? We have. And the answer we got, in the national consultations and this year’s parliamentary elections, was a resounding no.

Hungary saw more than 400,000 migrants enter its territory illegally in 2015. Call that what you want, but when nearly half a million flood across your border illegally and in flagrant disregard for all international rules, yes, it feels like an “invasion.” We have never “forced asylum-seekers into detention camps.” We built processing centers where they would be compelled to wait until their asylum claim was decided. They have always been free to turn around and leave.

And while we’re talking about “context and clarity,” when mentioning the fence that we built on the southern border of Hungary, it’s important to remember that that frontier is an external border of Europe’s Schengen zone. Hungary, out of solidarity, is protecting Europe’s border.

Ask the citizens of Austria and Germany, countries that were also invaded by hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, how they feel about Hungary’s border fence. Surely, their answer would provide some clarity.

Migration, and Europe’s response to it, rank among the most important issues of our time. It penetrates to the core of our cultural identity and our vision for Europe’s future. Prime Minister Orban’s response that we should reduce immigration to an absolute minimum, provide aid to those crisis areas producing migrants, and preserve our cultural heritage and -- yes, Christian -- identity enjoys broad popular support not only in Hungary.

For genuine context and clarity, readers may want to consider that our response and that of a growing number of European leaders, supported by the voters, is not what is causing the current tensions that threaten to divide Europe. The source of tension and division comes perhaps from those who continue to impose migrant quotas and a pro-immigration agenda against the will of Europe’s citizens.

Zoltan Kovacs

Spokesman

Cabinet Office of the Prime Minister, Hungary

Budapest

June 5, 2018