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News > World

Hungary, Austria Hope to Bond Against Migrants

  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban

    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban | Photo: Reuters FILE

Published 30 January 2018
Opinion

The Hungarian head of government and conservative Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz share similar views on migrants to Europe.

On Tuesday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hopes top strengthen ties with his Austrian counterparts during an upcoming visit.

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Orban is scheduled to meet with the leaders of Austria's ruling coalition government to discuss various shared concerns. Austria boasts the only far-right held government in western Europe.

“Tomorrow we will have talks with the chancellor and also the vice-chancellor,” Orban said in a video posted Monday on his Facebook account.

“I would like to sign agreements with them... which should be about migration, about protecting Austria and Hungary and about helping each other. I hope I will succeed.”

The Hungarian head of government and conservative Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz share similar views on migrants to Europe. Hungary's influx of migrants is mainly from conflict-ridden countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The central European country is in the visa-free Schengen zone, making it attractive to migrants. Austria registered more than 80,000 migrants in 2015 – one of the largest number of asylum-seekers accepted in the region.

Orban’s administration launched a billboard campaign in 2015 instructing migrants to respect Hungary’s laws.

“Our answer is clear: we would like to preserve Europe for Europeans ... and this also requires an effort from other (countries),” Orban said. “But there is something that we would not only like but we want: to preserve Hungary for Hungarians,” the lead said at the time.

In October, Kurz led his conservative party to victory before brokering a coalition deal with the anti-immigration Freedom Party, last month.

Freedom Party leader and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache, like Kurz, believes Austria needs to set itself apart from western European allies, like Germany, and towards eastern European states, like Hungary and Poland.

Both men have routinely defied Brussels on immigration rights issues.

Kurz has spent much of his time in office seeking to reassure allies that his government will be pro-European while securing its external borders.

“I think we can be a good bridge-builder within the European Union,” Kurz told a joint news conference in Berlin.

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