(JNi.media) The influx of Muslim refugees into Europe could undermine its Christian roots, and so “Christian” governments must gain control over Europe’s borders, before they can begin to decide how many asylum seekers they should accept, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday wrote in an op-ed for the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung. Orban, who is president of the national conservative ruling party Fidesz, insisted that the people of the majority of European countries disagree with their governments on how to solve the refugee crisis.
“The people want us to master the situation and protect our borders,” Orban wrote, adding that “only when we have protected our borders can questions be asked about the numbers of people we can take in, or whether there should be quotas.”
Orban said his country was being “overrun” with refugees, most of whom are not Christians, they’re Muslims. “That is an important question, because Europe and European culture have Christian roots. Or is it not already and in itself alarming that Europe’s Christian culture is barely in a position to uphold Europe’s own Christian values?” he wondered.
Speaking in Brussels on Thursday, Orban told a press conference that his government is complying as much as it can with EU regulations in its dealing with the ongoing influx of migrants who travel through Hungary on their way to western Europe, most notably Germany.
“Just between us,” he told the reporters, “the problem is not a European problem, it’s a German problem. Nobody (meaning none of the asylum seekers) wants to stay in Hungary.”
He complained that under the EU’s “Dublin rules,” his government must register all migrants who arrived in Hungary from outside the EU bloc, otherwise they are not allowed to continue further into the Schengen zone (the area comprising 26 European countries that have abolished passport and any other type of border control at their common borders). He said his country was being tasked with a chore that should be Germany’s responsibility.
Orban also defended his government’s decision to erect a fence along Hungary’s southern border with Serbia, to control the wave of undocumented migrants, the majority of whom are arriving in droves from Syria and Iraq. Orban insisted that since his country is on the outskirts of the Schengen border, it was its duty to maintain control over the “frontier.”
Hundreds of migrants crammed into Budapest’s Keleti station on Thursday morning after police removed the barricades they positioned there on Tuesday. But direct westbound trains were still not moving, with the predictable consequences confusion and angry protests.