Immigration is not solution to population decline: Orban
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban does not believe immigration is a useful tool for combating population decline.
“The only solution to population decline is for the state to help families, to support family formation,” the right-wing leader said at the opening of a two-day “demographic summit” in Budapest on Thursday. “In our country, migration is a question of identity.”
Orban has sealed off his country from refugees and migrants with metal fences, and almost no one can apply for asylum in Hungary.
Other speakers at the conference include ex-us vice-president Mike Pence, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and the prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovenia, Andrej Babis and Janez Jansa.
Marion Marechal, the niece of French right-wing populist and presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, is also attending.
Also scheduled to speak were several academics who have in the past
appeared to deny women’s equality and the crime of marital abuse.
Women’s rights groups demonstrated outside the summit venue at Buda Castle.
Central European leaders also signed a joint declaration saying immigration should not be the answer to the European Union’s declining birth rate, while calling on the bloc to keep family policy under national jurisdiction.
The strong anti-immigrant stances taken by governments in central European countries such as Hungary — while popular with many domestic voters — have contrasted sharply with policies in the rest of the bloc.
These central European countries have also objected to EU criticism of their policies on social issues.
“Increasing the number of European children is essential to preserving Europe’s culture and other traditions for future generations,” said the statement, signed by the prime ministers of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and the president of Serbia, which is not an EU member.