Anti-Migrant Campaign Scuppers Guest Workers Law in Hungary
- 10 Oct 2023 11:57 AM
- Hungary Around the Clock
The government will repeal legislation due to take effect on November 1 on easing regulations on guest workers because its anti-migrant campaign has been too successful in stirring up suspicion of foreigners, a government source told news website 24.
The source said “the anti-migrant campaign was too successful in the last eight years, from here it is difficult to change the public mood, people see a potential threat in every guest worker with a different skin colour.”
In other words, 24 writes, the law may have been put on the back burner because the government encountered too much social resistance in the matter that it had itself generated.
Asked whether the change of plan was due to the results of opinion polls conducted by the communication office led by Antal Rogán, the government source said “They measure everything”.
“The announcement of the cancellation of the law was partly a surprise, partly not,” said Ferenc Rolek, vice-president of the employers’ association Mgyosz.
His organisation was aware that the cabinet would reconsider the regulations governing foreign workers but not that it would scrap the already adopted law.
Iron Workers Union vice-president Zoltán László commented “Just as we did not know that the guest worker law was being drafted, we also did not know that it would not be allowed to come into force”.
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