EU leader sees danger in Hungary migrant vote

Nearly all Hungarians who voted in Sunday’s referendum rejected the European Union’s migrant quotas but turnout was too low to make the poll valid, frustrating Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s hopes of a clear victory with which to challenge Brussels.

Senior politicians from Orban’s ruling Fidesz party declared victory shortly after voting finished at 1.00 p.m. ET, citing exit polls which they said showed 95 per cent of Hungarian voters, or more than 3 million people, had rejected the quotas.

More than 98pc of Hungarians voted No to the quotas in the referendum, but only 45pc of the eight million Hungarians registered to cast their vote did so, falling short of the required 50pc to make it legally valid.

Based on that figure, analysts at the Political Capital research and consultancy institute projected final turnout between 43.9 and 45.9 percent.

“If referendums are going to be organised on every decision of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, legal security is in danger”, EU President Jean-Claude Juncker warned in late July.

But despite an extensive antimigrant campaign, initial results suggested that the turnout did not reach the necessary 50 percent, making the October 2 vote invalid.

After casting his ballot, Orban said a no vote would give him the authority to address the migrant issue with the EU. “That’s more than voted to join the European Union in the 2003 referendum”, suggests Hungarian government’s Twitter account. Both countries reject the mandatory quotas and are challenging the EU’s sharing scheme at the European Court of Justice.

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere meanwhile said Sunday that Berlin wants to reinstate an European Union rule, suspended in 2015, which obliges asylum seekers to return to the first country within the bloc that they reached. Last year, Hungary granted asylum to only 508 refugees and a similar number is expected this year.

On Friday, opposition parties and rights groups demonstrated in Budapest against the referendum, criticising the government for stoking fears and xenophobia. Those ballots will arrive in Hungary later in the week to be counted.

Police move refugees away from a road at the refugee camp in Roeszke, Hungary, in September previous year.

In all, almost 400,000 migrants passed through Hungary previous year, en route to Western Europe, primarily to Germany. Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said Hungary should be expelled from the bloc for breaching European values, including erecting a razor-wire fence along its border with Serbia. There, refugees with a “high chance” getting asylum would wait for a decision on their applications and, in case of success, receive permission to settle in the country to which there were relocated.