“Brussels can have them”: Hungary gives migrants bus tickets to Brussels

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made it clear on Friday at the international Cernobbio forum on Lake Como in northern Italy that the migration pact had failed. “Without a new deal, illegal migration will explode the EU; We have to prevent that,” he emphasized the corrosive effect of illegal migration on EU legislation. “If you look back from 2014 to today, this period is a phase of the dissolution process of the European Union,” he said.

A senior Hungarian official supported these statements and stressed that the Hungarian government was committed to implementing a plan that would allow asylum seekers free travel to Brussels. At a press conference in Budapest, State Secretary Bence Rétvári said that the EU wanted to pressure Hungary to allow “illegal migrants” across its borders. He announced that Hungary was offering “these illegal migrants a one-way ticket to Brussels voluntarily and free of charge.” “If Brussels wants illegal migrants, Brussels can have them,” he said.

Due to its strict asylum policy, Hungary has long been in conflict with the leading EU states and has not only been criticized by Brussels, but also punished. During the discussion on Friday, Viktor Orbán emphasized that Europe faces three major challenges: creating peace in Ukraine, launching a new competition pact for the EU and renegotiating the failed migration pact. Orbán is surprised that an EU Commission that has failed in all three of these major challenges is now given the chance for a second term in office. He himself will of course try to motivate the Commission to do better, but “to be honest, the citizens wanted something different in the European elections”.

Orbán called for a special regulation for Hungary in the EU migration policy because they do not want to burden themselves with the problems that many Western countries are currently having to deal with. “Italy, like many other countries, has allowed a lot of people into the country uncontrolled and is now having problems with coexistence. We didn't even go down this path because we don't want to let people like that come in. Why can't the EU accept the special path of individual countries that don't want to join the common migration policy?" said Orbán according to the "Budapest Zeitung". He reiterated his views in a post on X: “Let Hungary and others get out of the common migration policy.”