Hungary proposes world quotas for migrants
September 30, 2015
Hungary has proposed a global system on accepting migrants, saying Europe should not bear the full burden of migrants flooding into the region from the Middle East.
It was important that world powers partially to blame for the turmoil accepted the fallout, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
"We suggest that all major players should bear some burden. We should introduce some world quotas," Szijjarto said.
"The major sources of this mass popular movement are countries which became unstable because of international political decisions. They were not made only by Europe."
Szijjarto said he would formally recommend a world quota during a meeting on migration at the UN on Wednesday.
Other EU nations have criticized Hungary for opposing country quotas within the EU. It has constructed a heavily-fortified razor wire fence along its southern border with Serbia, to halt the flow of thousands of migrants hoping to reach other EU nations.
Nearly 300,000 migrants have entered Hungary this year.
Szijjarto said the EU should finance the refugee camps in countries neighboring Syria, so displaced people could remain as close to their homes as possible. And he propsed a "joint European force" to be assembled in Greece, the entry point for most migrants, to secure the EU's external borders.
jr/bw (AP, AFP, dpa)