A good scenario will develop if the mandatory quotas are removed, but if the stalemate remains and the big states continue “wanting to shove down our throats the mandatory quotas”, then Hungary will resist; it will refuse to carry out the decision and take the European Commission to court.

“There will be a big battle. And we need the constitution for that,” he added. Orbán said that he always addresses the debates on migrant affairs in Brussels because “after all ... I have launched a new politics that deviates from commonly agreed norms...”

On the topic of recent critical remarks by Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister, Orbán said Italian politics is a difficult territory and Italy has budgetary problems, too.

He said a huge number of migrants were burdening the country and so Renzi had “good reason to be uptight”. But at the same time, he said Italy was duty-bound to stick to the terms of the Schengen agreement but it was failing to do so.

“Though this is hard, it is not impossible,” he said, adding that Europe was not giving Italy the appropriate help either.

EU’s Frontex border agency is not a border guard that set out to stop migration but an organisation that helped to speed up lawful entry into the EU, he said. This goes to show that there is no agreement between European countries in their policy goals, the prime minister said.

Hungary, in light of its referendum on EU migrant quotas, believes that illegal entry of migrants must be stopped, while Brussels and leaders of other EU member states, including Italy, “want to manage, regulate and make the migration process acceptable.”

Asked about reports concerning the extension of EU internal border controls, Orbán said this would be bad for Hungary. Hungary’s interest lies in open internal borders, and Italy and Greece protecting the external border, he added.

One factor with internal border controls is that commuting between Austria and Hungary mean there are “unnecessary obstacles … due to the Austrians”.

Orbán noted that Hungary had so far spent more than 150 billion forints (EUR 490m) on border protection. “We will no longer tolerate the assertion that Hungary is not a country of solidarity,” he said.

Republished with permission of Hungary Matters, MTI's daily newsletter.

MTI photo: Koszticsák Szilárd