Hungarian PM claims Europe is in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees

Baku. 3 September. REPORT.AZ/ Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has claimed that Europe is in the grip of madness over immigration and refugees, and argued that he was defending European Christianity against a Muslim influx.

Orbán’s incendiary remarks came as he arrived in Brussels for a confrontation with EU leaders over his hardline policies in Europe’s biggest migration emergency since the second world war.

“Everything which is now taking place before our eyes threatens to have explosive consequences for the whole of Europe,” Orbán wrote in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Europe’s response is madness. We must acknowledge that the European Union’s misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation.

“Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate.”

Germany, France, and Italy are demanding an overhaul of European asylum procedures as attempts to get to grips with the crisis leave Europe floundering in incoherence while the Schengen passport-free travel zone across 26 countries threatens to unravel.