Hungary will not sign the UN’s first compact on global migration, after all UN member nations except the US approved the draft to be signed in December. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has taken a tough stance on migration.
The United Nations’ first compact on global migration has been met with opposition by Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban is taking a tough stand.
Explaining his country’s decision not to approve the draft, which is to be signed in December, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto on July 18 described the newly agreed UN global migration compact a “threat to the world”. He said it went against his country’s interests.
“This pact poses a threat to the world from the aspect that it could inspire millions [of migrants],” he added.
Szijjarto described the compact as a measure which was “extreme, biased and facilitates migration.”
“Its main premise is that migration is a good and inevitable phenomenon,” the minister said. “We consider migration a bad process, which has extremely serious security implications.”
The draft for the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, took 18 months to draw up and was approved last Friday by 191 UN member nations except the United States, which pulled out last year saying it was “inconsistent with US immigration and refugee policies.”
As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, the compact aims to create a global framework for managing migration: a “non-legally binding, cooperative framework” to encourage “international cooperation among all relevant actors on migration, acknowledging that no state can address migration alone, and upholds the sovereignty of states and their obligations under international law”.
