Orbán says migrants threaten ‘Christian’ Europe

By Matthew Karnitschnig

Hungarian PM’s comments come ahead of his talks in Brussels on the migrant crisis.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán delivered a passionate defense of his government’s controversial refugee policies, casting the debate as a clash of cultures that threatens to undo Europe.
“Europe is not being pressured by a ‘refugee problem’ or a ‘refugee situation,’” he wrote in an op-ed for Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Rather, the continent is under threat of an ever-growing modern exodus.”

Orbán is meeting in Brussels with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday to discuss the refugee crisis.
His commentary underscores the deep divide between Western and Eastern Europe over how to handle the crisis. Germany and other countries believe Europe has a moral obligation to help the refugees, an argument Orbán firmly rejected.
He said Europe’s focus needed to be on protecting its borders, not letting in more refugees. Hungary lies on the main route for refugees from Syria and other troubled on their way to northern Europe and has struggled to manage the influx.
Budapest is constructing a wire fence to keep the refugees at bay, but so far it has had little impact.
“The protection of our borders is the first and most important question,” Orbán said in his piece for the conservative daily. “There is no point in discussing any other issue until the flood has been halted.
The Hungarian leader, who has drawn criticism in recent years both at home and abroad for what many view as a dictatorial style, drew on the vocabulary of the far right to make his case, referring to asylum seekers not as refugees but as “illegal aliens.”
He stressed that the “exodus” threatens to undermine Europe’s culture and way of life.
“We shouldn’t forget that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim,” he said. “Or is it not worrying that Europe’s Christian culture is already barely able to maintain its own set of Christian values?”
Orbán blamed the crisis on what he said were the EU’s “failed immigration policies” as well as those in Europe who have said they would welcome the refugees.
“It is irresponsible for any European politician to give migrants hope of a better life and encourage to leave everything behind and risk their lives en route to Europe,” he said.