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Hungary refugee attitude a danger

By Staff | Oct 14, 2016

Hungary’s anti-
immigrant referendum last week was declared invalid because less than half of the electorate turned out. But it is distressing that 3.3 million voters, or more than 98 percent of those who cast ballots, favored the proposal by Prime Minister Viktor Orban to reject European Union requirements that the country accept its share of refugees.

Mr. Orban, the autocratic leader of one of the right-wing parties stoking fears in Europe, spent $36 million in government funds and risked considerable political capital on the referendum. He was seeking a mandate to pursue his exclusionary policies and push the bloc to restructure itself to return more power to individual nations. He now says he will try to achieve those goals with a constitutional amendment. Voters should reject that approach.

There is no doubt that Europe and the European Union are facing a crisis, with terrorist attacks and a staggering influx of refugees at a time of high unemployment. The result is that many Europeans have lost faith in their government institutions and turned to populist movements or nationalist leaders like Mr. Orban who promise to protect their jobs, way of life and security by closing national borders and rejecting pan-European solutions.

European leaders clearly must do better at problem-solving and restoring that faith if the bloc is to survive. In March, they reduced the refugee tide by making a deal with Turkey, and on Wednesday they announced a deal with Afghanistan that would send tens of thousands of Afghans back home. But these are partial, temporary answers. Commitments to more equitably share the responsibility for millions of people fleeing conflicts are urgently needed.

Mr. Orban’s approach would put a unified solution further out of reach. The trigger for his referendum was a modest European Union plan to relocate 160,000 people throughout the bloc to relieve pressure on Greece and Italy, the main entry points for migrants. Hungary, which was a major transit point during last year’s migrant crisis, was asked to take 1,294 asylum seekers, a manageable number for a nation of nearly 10 million.

Officials in Hungary have stoked fears by describing the largely Muslim refugee population as a security risk. Mr. Orban framed his referendum as an attempt to defend Europe’s "Christian values." There seems to be no recollection of how, in 1956, other countries welcomed roughly 200,000 Hungarians fleeing the failed uprising against Communism.

Last year, Mr. Orban built a razor-wire border fence to keep out those fleeing war, but he has been only too happy to admit other foreigners, mostly Chinese, who are wealthy enough to pay their own way. Many countries that have 55,000 unfilled jobs, as Hungary does, would welcome migrants, but Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, told The Times that his government is determined to fill those positions internally.

Nevertheless, while Mr. Orban and his supporters reject European Union efforts to solve the refugee crisis, they are not talking about leaving the bloc, which would deprive Hungary of billions of dollars in funding a year. Instead, Mr. Orban hopes to inspire the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia to join Hungary in rejecting the bloc’s quotas. European leaders seem disinclined to penalize Hungary now, but such a move may have to be considered seriously at some point.

Mr. Orban and other nationalists who are rejecting the liberal values of tolerance and free movement at the heart of modern Europe risk stirring animosities that less than a century ago led the Continent into world war.

The New York Times

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