The firm’s analysis based on the EU proposal showed that had the quota system been introduced last year, Hungary would have had to grant asylum to nearly six times as many applicants as it actually did.

The European Union received 625,000 asylum requests in 2014, 185,000 of which were granted by member states, it said. Although Hungary received some 43,000 illegal immigrants last year, only 500 of them, or 0.3% of the EU total, were granted refugee status, the Center said.

It said that applying the Commission’s proposed allocation method to last year’s figures shows that Hungary would have been expected to take on 1.53% of the total number of asylum-seekers in the EU, meaning that Hungary would have had to grant refugee status to 3,000 people.

Compared to its population, Hungary receives the second largest number of asylum seekers in the European Union, following Sweden, Hungary’s House Speaker László Kövér said last week at a meeting of his Euroepan counterparts. He added that in the first four months of 2015 alone, over 30,000 asylum applications were submitted to Hungary’s authorities.

Meanwhile the Hungarian government has underlined its rejection of a European Union plan to require member states to take in migrants on a quota basis. “There’s no way” that Hungary will take in migrants on a quota basis, cabinet chief János Lázár told a government press briefing on Thursday.

“Our community does not want to see immigrants in Hungary”, PM Viktor Orbán also said earlier, rejecting the idea that Europeans should scheme to “distribute” immigrants among member states.

MTI photo: Zoltán Gergely Kelemen

Source: hungarytoday.hu

Republished with permission