BUDAPEST, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban lashed out at the European Commission's new approach to migration policy and called for a reform of the European Union's (EU) asylum regulations, at a three-hour press conference here on Tuesday.
"The problem is that today in Brussels everybody agrees that the migrants have to be stopped, even if it is with a fence. Nobody is subject to attacks for having built a fence, like the ones we suffered back in 2015," Orban said, referring to the fence his government erected along Hungary's southern borders following the mass migration wave of 2015.
"This is one part of reality. The other part is that we have a legal system on asylum seekers that is in place but that had been written before 2015, in peacetime, not for the situation we are in right now," Orban explained.
According to him, the laws applied by the EU authorities are outdated. Even the European Council has asked the Commission to amend the rules on asylum and adjust them to the "new reality" of massive migration, he argued.
"Hungary is a victim of this situation, we are condemned based on an obsolete legal order, the Commission can even fine Hungary, but the reality is that we have to stop the migrants at the borders, just like Poland did," Orban said.
In late 2020, Hungary was repeatedly criticized by the EU for demanding that asylum applications be presented only in "transit zones" on the border with Serbia and for drastically limiting the number of those allowed to enter those zones, thereby making a lawful request for asylum practically impossible.
"There is only one solution: the European asylum rules must be changed, but this process has not even started yet," he said.
Orban said he hoped his country would not be fined before these reforms are implemented. He also said that the cost of constructing the border fence must be borne in part or in full by the EU, as the majority of migrants want to move west from Hungary, and thus Hungary was also protecting western Europe.
According to Orban, his government's position is clear: "We believe that the asylum procedure for migrants should be carried out in accordance with the legal order of the 'target countries', but definitely outside the Schengen border."
At the press conference, Orban also confirmed to journalists that his Fidesz party would nominate Katalin Novak, minister for families, as its candidate for the country's next president.
The term of office of the current President Janos Ader expires next May. Enditem
