The EU Summit in Bratislava

Commentators disagree on Prime Minister Orbán’s diagnosis that after last Friday’s meeting in the Slovak capital, the EU’s position on illegal immigration remained basically unaltered, as leaders spoke much more about migrant resettlement than about the protection of Europe’s borders.

In an unsigned comment on Sunday, Nyugat quotes the Prime Ministers of Slovakia and Poland expressing satisfaction over the fresh EU consensus on curbing the wave of immigration into Europe. The authors think Mr Orbán could have declared victory after such an outcome, but chose instead to ‘pretend that nothing happened in Bratislava’. They accuse the Prime Minister of distorting the truth ‘in order to gain political advantages at home’, namely to mobilise voters ahead of the 2 October referendum against ‘compulsory’ refugee resettlement quotas.

In Magyar Hírlap, on the other hand, Péter Tamáska describes the language used by western leaders as ‘fudgy’, quoting Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Hollande of France as talking about a new vision, promising new security and new prosperity to the peoples of Europe, instead of facing the burning problems tormenting the continent. Meanwhile human traffickers continue to flood Europe with African migrants from Libya across the Med, he remarks. Tamáska calls the new arrivals ‘Allah’s day-labourers’ who are meant to reshape the face of Europe.

Tags: EU, Orbán, referendum