Hungary referendum set to reject EU migrant quotas

An overwhelming majority of Hungarians are expected to reject the European Union’s mandatory quotas in a referendum on Sunday, which should boost right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s standing at home and embolden him in his battles with Brussels.

Orban, who has been in power since 2010, is among the toughest opponents of immigration in the EU, and over the past year he has sealed Hungary’s southern borders with a razor-wire fence and thousands of army and police border patrols.

The EU relocation scheme plans to relocate a total of 160,000 migrants across the bloc, with Hungary receiving 1,294 asylum seekers.

While last year hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East crossed Hungary on their way to richer countries in Western Europe, this year Hungary recorded around 18,000 illegal border crossings.

During the migrant influx, Hungary became a transit on the Western Balkan route to Germany and other EU destinations. In an effort to curb the influx, it sealed its border with Serbia and Croatia. The measure was popular at home but criticised by human rights groups.

Voters are being asked: "Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the approval of the National Assembly?"

Opinion polls show support for a rejection of EU migrant quotas of more than 80% among those who say they will vote. But they indicate turnout might not necessarily top the 50% required for the poll to be valid.

In December Hungary filed a court challenge against the EU plan, which would see relocations over two years.

In a letter published in a daily newspaper on Saturday, Orban again urged Hungarians to send a message to the EU that its migration policies were flawed and posed a threat to Europe's security.

“We can send the message that it is only up to us, European citizens, whether we can jointly force the Union to come to its senses or let it destroy itself,” he wrote in the Magyar Idok.

Orban said the task in the next few months would be to prevent Brussels imposing rules that would forcefully settle migrants, and has linked mass immigration from the Middle East to an increased risk of violent attacks in EU societies.

While Budapest says immigration policy should be a matter of national sovereignty, human rights groups have criticized the government for stoking fears and xenophobia, and for mistreating refugees on the border.

On Friday, around 1,500 people demonstrated in Budapest against the referendum.

Orban's hardline approach on migration has won allies in Central Europe. Eastern Europe's ex-communist states, now in the EU, are opposing a policy that would require all EU countries to take in some of the hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum in the bloc.

In a TV interview on Thursday, Mr Orban said: "If there are more 'no' votes than 'yes' votes, that means Hungarians do not accept the rule which the bureaucrats of the European Commission want to forcefully impose on us."

"The more migrants there are, the greater the risk of terror," he added, according to excerpts published by Reuters news agency.