The United Nations should not encourage migration but play a leading role in resolving conflicts and helping African populations stay at home under appropriate circumstances, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said, addressing the general debate of the 74th session of the UN General Assembly late on Thursday local time. Additionally, the organisation should help people return home as soon as possible and live safely, and help member countries protect themselves from security risks, he said.
Since the United Nations approved its Global Compact for Migration last year, new waves of migrants have emerged, posing security challenges to the countries where they leave from, to those that they cross and also to their destination countries, Szijjártó said. Hungary is doing what the UN should: protect its citizens and borders, which are also the borders of the European Union and they can only be crossed legally, he added. The Hungarian government expects the UN to handle border violation as a serious criminal offence and to stop portraying NGOs as legitimate representatives of countries, Szijjártó said. He called on the UN not to discuss migration as the best means for resolving demographic and employment challenges. Hungary is seeking solutions to these problems by supporting families and continually modernising education, he added. “One would expect from the UN and other international organisations to protect and promote international law and to help those who respect and comply with the international law and step up against those who violate the international law,” he said. It is a fundamental right that people should be able to live under peaceful, safe and secure circumstances in their home country, he added. The UN had the intention last year to celebrate the migration compact as the best document ever made in history, but this attempt has failed, he said. Hungary, the United States, Israel, Poland, the Czech Republic and later Brazil voted against it and described the compact as the most dangerous document on migration, he added. Since the approval of the compact, numerous attempts have been made to push through parts of it and certain chapters to other documents, he said. Hungary rejects these attempts and urges all UN institutions to stop these attempts, he added. Hungary will continue to reject all UN documents that make reference to the global compact for migration, Szijjártó said.
Commenting on European developments in recent years, he said Brussels’ “irresponsible and harmful” policies resulted in the arrival of millions of illegal migrants in the continent, with many of them dying in the Mediterranean Sea. Parallel societies have emerged in western Europe where a “loud minority puts its pressure on the silent majority”, he said. He noted that over 300 people died in more than 30 terrorist attacks committed by persons with a migratory background. He described Brussels’ policies of pressurising countries “to get rid of their national identity … cultural, religious and historic heritage in order to weaken the member states and finally create a united states of Europe” as “hypocritical and ideologically motivated”. Szijjártó said Hungary rejects these policies and wants a strong Europe made of strong member states, and to preserve its national identity, he said. Hungary is proud of its 1,019 years of statehood and wants to continue building it on a Christian foundation, he said.
Recent European developments show that efforts must be increased to protect residents, Szijjártó said. Ports have been opened to migrants and the debate on the obligatory quotas for resettlement has been restarted, he added. The situation that has developed in the western Balkans is now comparable to that in 2015, Szijjártó said.
He said many countries, international organisations and NGOs currently inspire people in need to go to Europe and they give them the impression that NGOs should help migrants get to Europe illegally. Human smugglers and groups of organised crime benefit from this, making millions of dollars, Szijjártó said. Terrorist organisations also benefit from this because they can use uncontrolled migration to send their militants all over the world. With this policy, “the countries of origin lose because if people are going far away from countries of origin they will never return and then the question arises who will reconstruct, who will rebuild those countries”, he said. The countries of transit also lose where “migrants occupy public areas and behave aggressively”, and the countries of destination lose as well where parallel societies emerge, he added. Help should be taken to where it is needed and problems should not be generated where they do not exist, Szijjártó said. Hungary has spent 40 million dollars on helping Christian communities in the Middle East and helped more than 50,000 stay in or return to their homelands. With this programme, Hungary wants to draw the attention of the international community to the fact that Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world. He also said that for the group of least developed countries in the world, Hungary this year increased financial support seven-fold to 29 million dollars and increased financial support to Africa 5 times to 25 million dollars. Hungary grants 4,870 scholarships to students from Asia, Africa and South America, he added.