Hungarian Govt Exclusive: Failure of Establishment To Address Migration Created Europe’s Patriotic Spring

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Speaking to Breitbart London, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács discussed the rise of anti-mass migration populist parties in Europe in reaction to the migrant crisis and blames the establishment for not talking about the reality of modern Europe.

The migrant crisis in Europe has led to the rise of what Geert Wilders in the Netherlands refers to as the “Patriotic Spring” a group of populist anti-mass migration parties who are growing daily in polls across Europe.

Breitbart London sat down with Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács in Budapest and discussed the rise of parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and the Front National in France.

Mr.Kovács did not want to directly comment on other countries’ domestic affairs, but did observe:

The signs you see with the emergence of alternatives in politics, many of them being described as ‘radical’ or ‘far right’ which I don’t believe to be the case, is rather interesting because that’s always a consequence of what the responsible part of the political sphere is not doing. That is: not talking about reality. If they don’t talk about reality, others will. That’s the name of the game.

I believe it’s all in everyone’s interest in Europe to have honest, frank, political forces in a country, responsible political parties who talk about the truth, who talk about the reality on the ground because that’s the only way to understand the nature of the problem.

He noted the challenge of trying to be open about migration because the press, according to Kovács

…is going to describe you as, let’s say, ‘unorthodox’ or write immediately that you’re a Nazi or a far-right representative of the political spectrum.

It’s about migration but also it’s about economic issues and others. So we’ll see. We always respect the democratic will of the people. It should be like that if they vote for someone and they vote for a party, they have a good reason for it.

One of the prominent politicians involved in the Patriotic Spring has been Austrian FPÖ candidate for president Norbert Hofer.  Hofer recently visited the Czech president in Prague and both expressed a desire for Austria to join the Visegrad 4 group who have shown solidarity against the mass migration policies of Western leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel.

On Austrian membership into the group, Kovács said:

Austria has always rather belonged to Central Europe, not the Western part of Europe. With the facts and the consequences of what is happening on the southern and eastern borders of Europe now with migration, it would be an interesting turn and development if the Austrians realised that.

We see it in that political campaign in Austria with the presidential elections, but we also see it in the Foreign Minister who has been very outspoken on migration issues and [is] fair and understanding about the perspectives of the Central European countries that Hungary represents for obvious reasons.

They have the legacy, they have the political knowledge of why you should listen to Central Europe.

The Hungarian government Mr. Kovács represents has been one of the most forthright in Europe during the migrant crisis, offering its people a referendum on whether they wanted European Union-forced mass migration — 98 per cent did not — and proving building walls can reduce illegal migration. After Hungary’s southern border fence was completed in 2015 illegal incursions into the nation dropped from tens of thousands daily to just a few dozen overnight.