European securityCalls for Hungary to be expelled from EU over refugee policy

In a Tuesday interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, foreign minister of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, called for Hungary to be “temporarily, or in the worst case, permanently” excluded from the European Union.

“We cannot accept that the basic values of the European Union are being massively violated,” Asselborn said. “Anyone, such as Hungary, who builds fences against war refugees, or who infringes on the freedom of the press or the independence of the justice system” should be excluded from the EU.

Die Weltnotes that Hungary has been outspoken in its criticism of the EU demanding that EU member states take in refugees from conflict areas such as Syria. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has framed the refugee question as a cultural-religious issue. He said his goal was “to keep Europe Christian” and announced: “We are experiencing the end of a spiritual-intellectual era. The era of liberalism. [This] provides the opportunity for the national-Christian thinking to regain its dominance not only in Hungary, but in the whole of Europe.”

Last week Orbán returned to this this argument at a press conference with the rightwing Polish politician Jarosław Kaczyński. Orban used the press conference to call for Europe and its institutions to be reworked in favor of a rightwing, populist vision. “We are at a historic cultural moment,” said Orbán. “There is a possibility of a cultural counter-revolution right now.”

Hungary has taken several steps to keep refugees out, including building fences and other barriers along its borders.

Asselborn said refugees who enter, or try to enter, Hungary are being treated “nearly as bad as animals,” and that anyone hoping to breach Hungary’s “ever longer, ever taller” fence may face the worst.

“Hungary is not far from an order to shoot refugees,” Asselborn said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, speaking at a press conference, distanced himself from Asselborn’s comments.

“This is not an agreed position in Europe,” he said. “I can understand, looking at Hungary, that some in Europe are getting impatient… however, it is not my personal approach to show a European member state the door,” he added.

Hungary’s government responded angrily, saying in a statement that Hungarians have the right to decide who they want to live with, not “Asselborn and his ilk.”

Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto said Hungarians would decide in an 2 October referendum whether to accept mandatory EU quotas for relocating migrants.

“This is how things are in a state under the rule of law,” he said. Szijjarto, describing Asselborn as “an intellectual lightweight” and as a “sermonizing, pompous, and frustrated” individual whose actions would ultimately destroy Europe’s security and culture.

In a statement issued by the Hungarian government, Szijjártó added: “It is somewhat curious that Jean Asselborn and Jean-Claude Juncker – who both come from the country of tax optimisation – speak about jointly sharing burdens. But we understand what this really means: Hungary should take on the burden created by the mistakes of others.”

Orbán’s government has sent an 18-page booklet to millions of Hungarian households ahead of the referendum, urging citizens to reject the EU refugee plan because it the “forced settlement endangers our culture and traditions.”

The government booklet contains an image of migrants and asylum seekers queuing to enter Europe, similar to the controversial “Breaking Point” poster used by UKIP during Britain’s EU referendum campaign.

The headline above the image of the queue says: “We have a right to decide who we want to live with,” according to a translation by the Budapest Beacon.

USA Today notes that under current EU rules, a member state can be suspended from the organization following a unanimous vote of the rest of the bloc. Asselborn has called for these rules to be reconsidered so a unanimous vote would no longer be necessary.

A July Human Rights Watch report outlined what it described as “cruel and violent treatment” of refugees who cross into Hungary without permission. Refugee men, women, and children have been “viciously beaten and forced back across the border.”

Hungary was the first EU country to refuse to accept EU refugee policies and block refugees frim entering the country. Last September Hungary had built a fence along its border with Serbia, and a month began to prevent refugees from crossing Hungary on their way from Croatia to Austria.

Hungary has also instituted fast-track trials for refugees who illegal enter the country – and stiff penalties for vandalism of the border fences. So far, 3,000 people have been convicted, and most of them have been expelled from the country.