Hungary PM says The Donald best for EU

BUDAPEST, HUNGARY— The anti-terrorism proposals of U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump make him the better option for Europe and Hungary, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Saturday.

Orban, who has built border fences to stop migrants, said in Romania that the ideas of the “upstanding American presidential candidate” about the need for the best intelligence services and his opposition to “democracy export” were also applicable in Europe.

“I am not Donald Trump’s campaigner,” Orban said at a cultural event in Baile Tusnad, Romania, an area with a large Hungarian population. “I never thought that the idea would ever occur to me that he is the better of the open options for Europe and Hungary.

“I listened to (Trump) and I have to tell you that he made three proposals to stop terrorism. And as a European, I myself could not have drawn up better what Europe needs.”

Orban, who returned to power in 2010, has been criticized often by the European Union, the U.S. and others for his policies meant to centralize power, control civic groups and increase influence over state and private media. Hillary Clinton visited Hungary in 2011 as secretary of state, and expressed U.S. concerns over the independence of the courts, the press and government corruption.

Orban, whose speech was broadcast live on Hungarian state media, blamed the West for intervening unsuccessfully in countries such as Egypt and Libya. While Hungary was not “indifferent” to the state of political and human rights in Turkey, he said its stability was most important.

“If Turkey becomes unstable, many tens of millions of people from that region will hurtle toward Europe without any sort of filtering, screening or control,” Orban said.

Hungary shut its borders with Serbia and Croatia last year, stemming the flow of migrants coming north from Turkey through Greece and trying to reach western Europe.