Hungarian Conservative

After years of negotiations and legal battles, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill passed on the floor of Parliament, with 240 members voting ‘content’ and 211 voting ‘not content’. Welcoming the passing of the bill, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that planes with migrants on board will be ready to take off and fly to Rwanda in East Africa in 10–12 weeks.

Prime Minister Orbán spoke to Yoram Hazony at a panel discussion at NatCon 2024 in Brussels, Belgium. A two-minute clip of the interview, in which he discusses illegal migration and Hungary’s approach to it, went viral on X, receiving over 40,000 likes.

According to press reports, Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán are scheduled to meet in Florida on 8 March. As the perhaps two most prominent figures of the international right, they are gearing up for crucial elections in 2024, and their alliance is deemed more significant than ever.

The V4 countries convened for a summit on 27 February, a gathering of paramount importance regarding the future trajectory of cooperation. The leaders of the allied states reached a unanimous agreement on the necessity to uphold cooperation in areas of common interests, notwithstanding differences of opinion.

The first V4 summit of the year is scheduled for 27 February, with a focus on illegal migration, energy security, and the EU’s strategic objectives. After the estrangement caused by the war in Ukraine, cooperation seems to be back on track, but its future will largely depend on the willingness and ability of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to collaborate.

Bence Rétvári declared that the ‘Brussels bureaucrats’ fear that anti-migration forces will advance in the European Parliament elections. Therefore, ‘in a panic,’ they resurrected previous migration-friendly proposals.

The Hungarian Prime Minister’s chief security advisor György Bakondi talked to the Hungarian television TV2, and explained why Hungary is not willing to comply with what is included in the European Union’s migration pact.

In a missive addressed to European Commissioner for Budget and Administration on Thursday, the Hungarian Minister of Finance recalled that there is a long-standing consensus that the defence of the European Union’s borders is a collective responsibility of the member states, and yet, Hungary bears almost exclusively the financial burden of the protection of its southern, Schengen border.

The participants of the conference agreed to hold regular meetings to assess migration processes, said President of the Visegrád Four and Interior Minister of the Czech Republic Vít Rakušan in Budapest on Monday.

The new Hungarian draft law laying down general rules on the entry and residence of third-country nationals is an unprecedentedly strict piece of legislation, not only in Europe but also globally, to regulate the employment of workers from outside the European Union.

During a debate in the UN Security Council, Foreign Minister Szijjártó of Hungary argued that the international community should focus on trying to improve the conditions in the migrants’ countries of origin instead of hosting them in more developed foreign countries. He also suggested that migration should be examined from a security, not a humanitarian perspective.

According to the Hungarian government, ‘preserving the ethnic foundations is our joint responsibility’, and as long as that exists, the politics based on ethnic groups also has a future, the Hungarian prime minister said.

In his regular Friday morning interview with public Kossuth radio, Viktor Orbán addressed issues such as migration, the economy and Ukraine’s EU accession.

The illegal migrants were found crammed inside the vehicle in the north-western part of Hungary. Human smuggling charges were brought against the driver.

Fidesz-KDNP MEPs spoke out firmly against the mandatory distribution of migrants in the EU following the debate on the new EU asylum and migration package in the European Parliament. ID and ECR MEPs expressed the same sentiment to the Hungarian press.

Speaking at the farewell of the Hungarian police contingent heading to Serbia, Bence Rétvári reminded that Hungary is already engaged in a trilateral cooperation with Austrian police, jointly protecting the southern borders of the European Union. The success of this police collaboration is evident in the significant number of illegal migrants that have been apprehended during recent times.

Hungary has spent 650 billion Hungarian forints on the defence of the southern border, the construction and reinforcement of the border fence, and its continuous protection.

According to Frontex data, 330,000 illegal migrants arrived in Europe last year, based on which the revenue of human smugglers could have reached 1,7 trillion forints, Bence Rétvári highlighted in interviews with Hungarian public media.

Bence Rétvári recalled at the farewell ceremony of the Hungarian police contingent heading to Serbia that a mission was launched in January this year in cooperation with Austrian and Serbian police officers to jointly protect the southern borders of Serbia to combat illegal migration and human smugglers.

Most Americans think there is an ‘invasion’ going on at the southern border of the United States as more migrants pour into the country than ever before.

‘Italy will not be an accomplice of human trafficking,’ argued Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.

Compared to last year, the number of illegal border crossings at the Czech-German border increased by roughly 140 per cent in June, and even more migrants made generally successful attempts to enter Germany in August.

The European Union’s current administration of refugee affairs can safely be called both flawed and obsolete.

The European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary failed to respect EU law by “pushing back” people entering the country illegally, but the Hungarian government has defied the ruling.

During the course of the last week, 849 migrants were apprehended in total, which is a 15% increase from the week before, when authorities detained 735 people in total.