An alliance of Central European countries led by Hungary has pledged to work together to stem the flow of illegal migrants into Europe at a meeting in Prague.
Delegations to the Central European Defence Cooperation (CEDC) group from Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic were, according to a report on the Hungarian government’s official website, “united against mass illegal migration”.
Defence ministers at the summit agreed to “facilitate the quick and joint mobilization of civilian, police and military capabilities” in defence of the European Union’s external borders.
Elaborating on the reasons behind Hungary’s robust anti-mass immigration stance, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán explained: “What we want is a Hungarian Hungary and a European Europe.”
The Fidesz leader said his government “won’t participate in experiments aimed at changing Hungary or Europe, in which Europe’s cultural traditions would be swept aside to be replaced by a mixture of other cultures, religions and worldviews, allowing masses to enter without control”.
Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic are currently at the sharp end of a political and legal struggle with the EU’s unelected executive and leading pro-mass immigration member-states over the imposition of compulsory migrant quotas throughout the bloc.
“We will not be forced to accommodate people whose identities or intentions we do not know,” Orbán said in a speech to new recruits in Hungary’s expanded border guard.
“We believe that the future of Europe is not planned in the centre of an empire but in the capitals of European nation-states; in Warsaw, Paris, Berlin, and in Budapest, too,” he added, warning that without well-protected frontiers, there will be “no welfare, security, order or development [in Europe], just uncertainty, fear, chaos, anger and trucks driving into the people”.
To buttress their position, the Hungarian government have embarked on a national consultation on how the country should ‘Stop Brussels’ from eroding its sovereignty and its capacity to manage its own migration policy.
The consultation is reported to have achieved record participation, with Orbán declaring:
“Countries now experimenting with the creation of Eurabia – or with the amalgamation of the remnants of Islamic and Christian culture – will now have to recognise that it’s not only the Hungarian government who don’t want to take part in such experiments, but that the Hungarian people have declared this in every form possible at every opportunity.”
Watch: Hungarian government advertisement for the National Consultation: