Hungary will not place special labels on products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told a breakfast meeting of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations in Jerusalem on Monday, characterizing the European Union’s decision to affix special labels on such products as “irrational.”
Szijjártó, 37, who has been in politics since 1998, and a member of the National Assembly of Hungary since 2002, said on a lightning 24-hour visit to Israel labeling these products will not contribute to a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and could cause more problems and damage.
Disarmingly candid, he said at the outset he was going to “honest and frank,” something Hungary has been noted for in Europe. “We have to tell things as they are, especially in a time of crisis, otherwise we can’t come up with a solution.”
Political correctness and hypocrisy, he declared, prevent the addressing of situations as they should be. They are, he said, undermining Europe, which “has not faced so many challenges since World War II.”
A couple of years back, when Europe looked at what was happening in the Middle East, he said there was an awareness of a terrorism threat that might extend to Europe, but nothing to worry about. Now, he said, “instead of the threat of terror, we have terror.”
Szijjártó singled out mass migration as “the greatest challenge that the EU has had to face since its foundation.”
In Europe, whoever speaks about mass migration rather than refugee migration is instantly attacked and charged with being fascist, xenophobic or belonging to a dictatorship, he said, adding that because of the political correctness and hypocrisy in European politics there is no consensus and the situation cannot be properly addressed.
“This is not a refugee crisis,” he insisted. This is mass immigration.”
Hungary, he boasted, is the only country in Europe that controls the influx of immigrants, saying: “We have solved our southern border issues,” and that the 28 EU countries should be able to put together a military force to defend the southern borders of Greece from illegal immigration.
“What happened in Paris last Friday is a strong wake-up call for European politicians,” Szijjártó said. “We must make serious decisions to protect our people because we are currently defenseless. We must get back the ability to control our borders. We should not be speaking about how to manage migration, but how to help these people to stay at home.”
Given its extensive experience in the matter, he said the EU must strengthen its cooperation with Israel in fighting terrorism, and stressed the importance of all superpowers being involved in the fight against ISIS “which is an everyday threat in Europe.”
Read the full article at The Jerusalem Post
