Peter Magyar's VP Finds Rejection of Migration Pact Painful

In his latest video, Peter Magyar’s vice president, Zoltan Tarr, argued that Brussels is handling migration correctly and that it is the Orban government that is at fault for refusing to let illegal migrants enter the country, the outlet Ellenpont reports. Zoltan Tarr accused the Hungarian government of having no implementation plan for the migration pact and no cooperation with other countries.

Zoltan Tarr and Peter Magyar, Vice-President and President of the Tisza Party (Photo: MTI)

In his new video, Zoltan Tarr claimed that the European Union is taking effective action to reduce migration.

He believes that the EU takes border protection seriously, as it cooperates with third countries and acts against human smugglers. In contrast, according to Tarr, the Hungarian government is not doing enough to curb migration.

This claim, as best understood from the video, seems to be based on the fact that the Hungarian government, together with several other European countries, refuses to adopt the migration pact, Ellenpont writes.

As for the alleged decrease in migratory pressure on the European Union, a 2024 summary document shows that in 2022 alone, 5.1 million non-EU nationals arrived in the EU,  more than double the number from the previous year.

Last year’s Eurostat data show that the number of illegal border crossings did indeed fall compared to the previous year, but this indicator had stood above one million annually for many years prior.

It is also worth noting that along Hungary’s southern Schengen border, there have been more than 750,000 attempted illegal entries in recent years. In addition, migrants have committed tens of thousands of crimes linked to illegal migration: in 2022 the number of such crimes was 70,295, in 2023 it was 65,795, and in 2024 it reached 36,353.

As for the supposedly effective tackling of  migration, even the EU’s own 2021 statistics show that

within a single year, 15 terrorist attacks took place in Europe, with all of them affecting Western European countries.

The attack at the Magdeburg Christmas market shocked Europe (Photo: Magyar Nemzet)

And if what Zoltan Tarr claims were true, that Europe’s measures are effective, then how could it happen that exactly one year ago, on December 20, 2024, a Muslim attacker plowed into the crowd at the Magdeburg Christmas market? The terrorist attack claimed 5 lives and injured 151 people. Not to mention the daily stabbings and acts of violence in Western Europe — incidents officially not categorized as terrorist attacks but clear signs of growing problems of social coexistence.

Szazadveg Foundation's Europe Project found that 74 percent of respondents support stricter border protection to reduce migration. This ratio is even higher in Germany and France.

 Across the European Union, 65 percent of respondents feel that crime has increased due to immigration, and 55 percent say they do not feel safe because of migration.

Zoltan Tarr accused the Hungarian government of being "guilty" of not having an implementation plan for the migration pact and not cooperating with other countries. Under the pact, member states lose the right to deny entry to migrants, and each state must provide for illegal migrants who have already entered its territory, with those migrants being allowed to move freely while their asylum applications are being processed.

This is in addition to the pact’s mandatory redistribution mechanism, which Tarr Zoltan claims to oppose, yet the Tisza Party nevertheless supports the pact as a whole, including the redistribution mechanism.

Hungary's border fence (Photo: Ellenpont)

To date, the Hungarian government has spent nearly 800 billion forints on the construction and defense of the southern border fence, without a single euro of contribution from the European Union. Furthermore, based on a ruling by the European Court, Hungary is now facing a colossal fine, costing the Hungarian budget 1 million euros every single day.

Cover photo: Zoltan Tarr and Peter Magyar, Vice-President and President of the Tisza Party (Photo: MTI)