BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s prime minister said Saturday that the European Union has made “grave mistakes” in the past five years regarding immigration and the economy.
The European Commission needs to allow a council of EU interior ministers to decide migration issues, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a Hungarian cultural festival in the Romanian town of Baile Tusnad. He compared their role to the so-called Eurogroup, the finance ministers of the countries using the euro currency.
Orban also took exception to what he described as the “political activism” of the European Commission, which has launched numerous procedures against the Hungarian government on issues in which the country is considered to be in contravention of EU rules. Over the years, these have included objections to laws seen as limiting the rights of asylum seekers or intimidating civic groups that help them, or special taxes targeting, for example, media companies independent of the government.
“The commission … needs to behave as the guard of the EU agreements and abandon political activism,” Orban said. “It is not a political body, it should not have a program, and it should not carry out political attacks on member states.”
Orban is scheduled to meet the European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday in Brussels. Orban supported her candidacy and has indicated that he expects her to have a more conciliatory position toward Hungary and other countries in the region that are often at odds with the majority of the EU on issues such as migration and environmental standards.
Hungary is also facing a so-called Article 7 procedure initiated by the European Parliament because of concerns about the rule of law, which the Hungarian government claims is motivated, as with practically any criticism it has received in the past four years, by its “zero tolerance” of migration, especially by Muslims.
Orban, 56, who was elected to his third consecutive four-year term — and fourth overall — in April 2018, said that in the coming 15 years, the only way to strengthen Hungary would be to oppose “the liberal zeitgeist and liberal internationalism.”