More on EU immigration quotas

As PM Orbán prepares to address the European Parliament debate on migration, a left-wing columnist compares the refugee situation in Europe to 1938 and calls for an increased migrant intake. A conservative commentator, on the other hand, believes that allowing more refugees into Europe would not solve the crisis.

In Népszabadság, Endre Aczél likens the current situation of refugees in Europe to the plight of the persecuted Jews in the interwar period. Although the League of Nations was ’worried’ by the developments, democratic countries did little to provide refuge for persecuted German and Austrian Jews, the left-wing pundit recalls. Aczél finds the Hungarian government’s proposal to improve the situation back in the countries of origin of refugees complacent, since he sees little chance that Afghanistan, Syria or Libya will become stabilise any time soon. In conclusion, Aczél suggests that the only possible and humane way to help refugees would be to comply with the EU’s proposed quota system (see BudaPost May 14).

The quota system is outright stupid, Miklós Ugró contends in Magyar Nemzet. The conservative commentator believes that even if it was implemented, the proposed quotas would be filled very rapidly. He wonders if the EU would then sink ships full of refugees in order to stop the influx of extra-quota asylum seekers. Ugró thinks that Europe has no better option than to help the countries of origin, so that people will not flee, as suggested among others by PM Orbán. In an aside, he remarks that the anarchy and chaos which propels migration is in many cases the result of Western intervention in developing countries.

Tags: EU, immigration, Orbán, refugees