Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has labelled mass migration a threat to humanity during a counter-terrorism conference in Vienna.
The Hungarian minister called on the United Nations (UN) to put funding towards fighting global terrorism, calling on the international organisation to spend less on facilitating mass migration.
“[W]e are calling on the UN to include the fight against terrorism in its budget, to spend more on the global fight against terrorism and less on migration, for the benefit of all the world’s citizens,” Szijjártó said.
He went on to note that mass migration has been connected to at least 30 terror attacks since the migrant crisis in 2015, and proposed four steps to restore security in Europe, including defeating the Islamic State terror group, strengthening national borders, supporting communities fleeing terror, and having the UN recognise terrorism as a major threat to be dealt with.
The minister went on to add that promoting mass migration could present “a very serious threat to the whole of humanity”, Hungarian news programme Hirado reports.
Szijjártó specifically called out the UN Global Migration Compact, which he previously criticised in 2018, calling it an attempt to legalise illegal immigration.
“The UN Compact is more dangerous, however, because it is a global initiative, meaning it will have a greater effect than [European] policy and represents a risk to the whole world,” he said.
Hungary, along with several other countries including the United States, Australia, and Israel, rejected the migration pact, with another dozen countries abstaining from voting in December of 2018.
Szijjártó has also been highly critical of the migration policies of the European Union, stating in September that the political bloc was attempting to “cram mandatory migrant quotas down the throats of European countries”.