Szijjártó Blasts Current Draft Of UN Migration Package
- 5 Apr 2018 8:15 AM
- Hungary Matters
The current draft of the United Nations’ package on migration poses the biggest threat to Hungary yet, because if adopted, it would grant illegal migrants access to the same services that Hungarians enjoy, Hungary’s foreign minister said.
Péter Szijjártó spoke to MTI ahead of the next round of intergovernmental talks on the UN’s migration package in New York.
Hungary will never approve the package in its current form, the minister said. But if the country does not fight it, the UN will pass the package and the government will have to give illegal migrants access to the same services that Hungarians “who have been paying their taxes honestly for decades” have access to, Szijjártó argued. “This is unacceptable,” he said.
Wednesday’s round of talks will be the third one about the migration package, Szijjártó noted. “The UN’s bureaucrats and pro-migration member states want to keep exerting pressure on the drafting process and incorporate totally nonsensical provisions into the package,” he said.
The current draft of the package is the worst one yet and poses bigger risks to the safety of the Hungarian people than any of the previous drafts, he said. Hungary will have to fight the migration package hard until December to make sure that the current draft is not the one that gets passed, the minister added.
He said there were four elements in the document’s current draft that Hungary finds unacceptable.
One such element is a provision requiring transit and destination countries to provide migrants access to all public services, irrespective of their legal status. Szijjártó argued that this provision was “extremely unfair” and further encouraged migration.
The minister also criticised the provision requiring countries to provide the same public services to migrants that are available to citizens. He also slammed the latest draft for “completely overlooking” people’s right to safety.
Szijjártó said the document would prohibit public service providers from handing over migrants’ personal details to deportation authorities. He argued that even if it were known that a migrant was residing in a given country illegally, it would be impossible to deport them.
Szijjártó also criticised a provision proposing the launch of training programmes for migrants “even before they set off” for their destination.
MTI Photo: Foreign Ministry
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