BELGRADE, Serbia
Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban on Monday said that if the EU seeks to “punish” his government, they would bring the migrants trying to enter the country to Brussels, the EU capital.
“If Brussels insists on punishing Hungary over migration, we’ll bring the migrants knocking at our gates straight to Brussels’ main square,” Orban told Hungary’s parliament on Monday.
In June, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) ordered Hungary to pay €200 million ($216 million) over “serious infringement” of the bloc’s asylum rules.
In a statement, the court said it also ordered Hungary to pay a penalty of €1 million per day of delay for “failure to comply” with the its orders.
“That failure, which consists in deliberately avoiding the application of a common EU policy as a whole, constitutes an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law,” it added.
Migration has sparked intense debates across Europe this summer, Orban said, pointing to Germany tightening its borders, France vowing to restore order, and other countries like the Netherlands and Sweden pushing for stricter anti-migration laws.
He claimed that such moves by EU countries mean “the era of free travel is coming to an end.”
On the war between Ukraine and Russia, Orban urged a cease-fire.
“Just as we were right about migration, we’ll be proven right about the war. There’s no solution on the battlefield – only death and destruction. What we need is a cease-fire, negotiations, and peace,” said Orban.
Hungary’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict has often clashed with the broader EU stance, with Orban facing accusations of being pro-Russian, which he denies.
Additionally, Hungary has been at odds with the EU over military and financial support for Ukraine and its EU membership negotiations.
