Migrants resettlement ban rejected by Hungarian MPs

Hungary's parliament narrowly rejected a plan on Tuesday to ban the resettlement of migrants in the country proposed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The proposed constitutional amendment got 131 votes in the 199-seat parliament - a majority of 65.8 percent, just short of the two-thirds majority needed to make the change.

Opposition parties boycotted the vote. The bill did not find the support of the anti-immigration Jobbik party which had demanded Orban scrap a cash-for-residency bond scheme allowing wealthy foreigners to buy the right to live in Hungary, saying the immigration ban should apply to all foreigners. Orban refused.

The bill had sought to rebuff an EU-set quota scheme that would relocate 1,294 refugees in Hungary.

The Hungarian Prime Minister had said the amendment was needed to honour an October referendum, in which more than 3 million Hungarians, an overwhelming majority of those who voted, rejected EU migrant quotas.

The turnout at that referendum was too low to make the result binding.