Mass migration puts Europe at risk of destabilisation – Hungarian foreign minister
If Europe cannot get control of its borders and decrease the migrant influx, Europe could be destabilised, Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó has told the United Nations General Assembly.
Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, Péter Szijjártó, said on October 3 that many states were marking the 70th anniversary of the UN “but there are no major reasons to celebrate.”
“During the last five years, we have witnessed 15 wars and armed conflicts, launched or renewed,” Szijjártó said, according to the UN News Centre. “And nowadays Europe has to face a war as well,” he added, referring to the conflict in Ukraine.
Szijjártó said no one has to be an economist to see that the situation is “unsustainable,” noting that Europe contains seven to eight per cent of the world’s population, producing 15 to 16 per cent of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while distributing “50 per cent of the world’s “social welfare spending.”
He said that mass migration had been the most difficult challenge, but that unfortunately “Europe has not been able to find the proper answers yet.”
“What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis, it’s much more than that and much more complicated than that,” he said, adding that Hungary is on the most “intensive” migration route.
“This mass migration is composed of asylum seekers, economic migrants, and also some foreign fighters, unfortunately,” Szijjártó said, adding that if Europe does not address the challenge now, it will have to face it in the future.
He said that the situation has resulted from a series of “bad international political decisions,” as well as from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gaining additional territories.
“If we cannot get control over our borders, if we cannot decrease the influx, if we cannot decrease the pressure, then Europe can be destabilised as well – first the peripheries, and then even the centre – so I would like to stress again it’s a global challenge, that needs a global answer, global solution, based on global participation.”
He said that instead of addressing the consequences of conflicts, the UN must focus on stabilising the situation, while member states needed to put together a proposal to set quotas and ensure that Europe is able address the increase of services.
(Photo of Szijjártó: UN Photo/Cia Pak)
