“I can only speak for the Hungarian people, and they don’t want any migration,” said Prime Minister Viktor Orbán | Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images Viktor Orbán: Hungary doesn’t want ‘Muslim invaders’ Hungarian prime minister speaks with German newspaper Bild after attending a meeting of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria last week.

BERLIN — Hungary has refused to take in refugees because its population is not in favor of opening the borders, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in an interview published Monday.

“I can only speak for the Hungarian people, and they don’t want any migration,” Orbán said. “In my understanding, it’s not possible for the people to have a will on a fundamental issue and for the government not to comply with it.”

Most refugees come to Europe not because they are fleeing dangerous conditions at home but because they want to take advantage of economic opportunities, Orbán, one of the bloc's most vocal anti-refugee leaders, told German newspaper Bild. As such, they shouldn't be considered "refugees" so much as "Muslim invaders," he said.

In keeping refugees out of Hungary, Orbán asserted he is merely following the will of his people — an indirect dig at Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door refugee policy has come under fire in Germany.

Orbán’s comments echo those he made last week at a meeting of the Christian Social Union (CSU), Merkel's conservative allies. The Hungarian prime minister predicted 2018 would see the “restoration of the will of the people” and criticized European leaders who “are not doing what the people want them to.”

The difference between Germany and Hungary’s respective handling of the refugee crisis is that Germany “wanted migrants, and we didn’t,” Orbán told Bild. Hungary, he added, helped the EU manage the crisis by protecting its border with Serbia, an effort that he said has cost Budapest more than €1 billion since 2015.

To solve Europe’s migration crisis, leaders should focus on fixing conditions “where the problem lies” and prevent potential migrants from reaching the Continent, Orbán said.

“The solution to the problem is certainly not to divide people who are in the EU illegally across the entire EU region,” he said. “We think one has to help where the problem lies, and not bring immigrants here.”