Hungary to reject EU refugee quota
October 2, 2016, 5:15 pm

Hungarians are expected to overwhelmingly vote against the EU-imposed quota system for refugees [Xinhua]

The EU last year decided that Hungary would over a period of two years resettle 1,294 refugees streaming across the Mediterranean into Italy and Greece. The total number to be resettled across the EU is 160,000.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party at the time rejected the imposed quota and put it to a referendum.

Orban’s policies are focused on maintaining European culture and heritage. He sees the influx of refugees as a threat to that pan-European Christian culture.

Over the weekend, he appealed to voters to reject the referendum.

“We lose our European values and identity the way frogs are cooked in slowly-heating water,” he said in remarks carried by local media.

“Quite simply, slowly there will be more and more Muslims, and we will no longer recognize Europe.”

On Sunday, the voters were asked:

Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the approval of the National Assembly?

Opinion polls leading up to the referendum showed that at least two-thirds of eligible voters would likely reject the EU plan.

But for the referendum to be considered a legitimate gauge of Hungarian public opinion, voter turnout needs to be more than 50 per cent.

Even if Hungarians reject the EU plan, their vote is neither legally binding nor is it a threat to current EU refugee rules.

Last year, Hungary set up a barbed wire fence across its border with Serbia and Croatia in a bid to deter tens of thousands crossing over on their way to Germany and beyond.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies