Hungary referendum: 98 per cent of voters say 'no' to EU migrant quotas - but what does that mean for the rest of Europe?

Hungary referendum: 98 per cent of voters say 'no' to EU migrant quotas - but what does that mean for the rest of Europe?
Hungary has voted emphatically against accepting EU migrant quotas, exit polls suggest, in a cry of defiance against Brussels that is likely to cement the country’s status as the leader of a “counter-revolution” against the bloc’s central powers.

 

As many as 95 per cent of voters voted “No” to the quotas in Sunday’s referendum, though there were fears last night the result could be declared invalid due to a low turnout.

One opinion poll by the Nézőpont Institute put turnout at just 42%, while a Hungarian government source it was unlikely to have been higher than 45%.

The referendum was the brainchild of Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, who cast the “No” vote as being in defence of the country’s sovereignty and independence.

His 18bn Forints (£50m) campaign focused heavily on the fact that Isil terrorists, such as those behind the Paris and Brussels attacks, posed as migrants in 2015 while returning from Syria along the so-called “Balkans route” of eastern European countries, including Hungary.

The country’s counter-terrorism centre also revealed this week that Hungary became a “logistics hub” for jihadists in the months leading up to the November 13 massacre in Paris, which left 130 people dead and a further 368 injured.

The “hub” was used to co-ordinate Isil fighters who were posing as refugees with fake passports as they returned to central Europe, intelligence chiefs said.

Gergely Gulyas, Mr Orban's deputy, said the result was "a sweeping victory for all those who reject the relocation plan, for those who believe that only nation states should remain, and for those who believe in democracy."

Data analysts claimed on Sunday evening that Hungary’s media overwhelmingly backed the “No” vote, with 95 per cent of TV broadcasts leading up to the referendum supporting the government’s position.

They also said that 91% of TV coverage about migrants in the same time period depicted them in a negative light.

Though the EU quotas would see only 1,924 migrants added to Hungary’s population of 9.8m, the vote is seen as highly symbolic of a tidal wave of anti-refugee sentiment sweeping across Europe.

Will the referendum change anything?

It will only be declared valid if turnout exceeds 50 per cent, and it was unclear on Sunday evening whether that target had been reached.

Initial polls put turnout at around 30 per cent at 3pm on Sunday, which could potentially take the wind out of the Hungarian prime minister's sails.

However, Mr Orban has insisted that parliament will pass legislation to advance the referendum’s goal even if turnout falls short of the mark.

"The most important issue next week is for me to go to Brussels, hold negotiations and try with the help of this result - if the result if appropriate- achieve for it not to be mandatory to take in the kind of people in Hungary we don't want to," he said after casting his vote at a primary school in the Buda hills.

“We are proud that we are the first" he added. "Unfortunately we are the only ones in the European Union who managed to have a (referendum) on the migrant issue."

The referendum asked voters: “Do you want the European Union to be able to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?"

Will other countries follow suit by rejecting quotas?

The decisive Hungarian vote came as Sebastian Kurz, the Austria's foreign minister, said the European Union should drop its plan to distribute 160,000 refugees around the member states.

"The target is totally unrealistic," he said, in an interview with the German daily Welt am Sonntag warning that countries' disagreements over the plan could threaten "the cohesion of the entire European Union".

Mr Kurz also warned against western countries like Germany taking the “moral high ground” against the more recently-joined eastern EU states who have rejected the mostly-Muslim refugees as a threat to their white-Christian identity and culture.

The strength of opposition to the migrant quotas – which were forced through by Brussels and Berlin on a qualified majority vote in September last year – was demonstrated last month when the post-Brexit EU 27 states met in Bratislava for a so-called “unity” summit.

Then, Mr Orban ignored pleas from EU leaders, including the European Council president Donald Tusk, to stop attacking the EU, marching out of the summit to declare the refugees policy to be “naïve and self-destructive”.

Could this spell the end of migrant quotas?

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Union’s most senior official, indicated in his “State of the Union” address last August that he was open to the possibility of scrapping the quotas.

The referendum, whose result was never in doubt, was widely seen as an attempt to use the issue as a stick to beat Brussels as part of what Mr Orban has called a “counter-revolution” against the centralization of EU power.

It was also designed to bolster Mr Orban’s position at home ahead of parliamentary elections in 2018.

He was been condemned as “un-european” by several EU leaders for his hardline stance on refugees last year, including a decision to erect a fence along Hungarian-Serbian border, but his government believes they were vindicated by events.

("Telegraph", 02.10.2016, by James Rothwell, Peter Foster, Balazs Csekö)

Photo: Balazs Csekö