Luxembourg foreign minister would kick Hungary out of the EU

“We cannot accept the founding principles of the EU being violated," Asselborn told German daily newspaper Die Welt in an interview published on Tuesday, just days before the informal EU summit of 27 EU leaders in Bratislava, Slovakia on 16 September.

“[Those] who build fences against refugees from war like Hungary does, or who violate press freedom and judicial independence, should be excluded temporarily or, if necessary, for ever from the EU," politico.eu cited Asselborn as saying. He added that was “the only way to preserve the cohesion and values of the EU."

Asselborn added that a treaty change would “be helpful" in order to allow EU membership to be suspended without the required unanimity. If it had to apply today, Hungary would not stand a chance of joining the EU, he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government had made serious mistakes and treated refugees almost like “wild animals," Asselborn said, pointing to a fence the country has built to prevent asylum seekers crossing its borders.

Hungary is also holding a government-sponsored referendum 2 October seeking support for rejecting any future EU plan to resettle migrants among member states. The hate campaign of the government uses billboards, TV and radio ads telling Hungarians things like "Did you know? Since the start of the immigration crisis, over 300 people in Europe died in terror attacks" or "Did you know? Just from Libya, nearly a million immigrants want to come to Europe."

The 2 October referendum question is: "Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?"

As with the earlier billboard campaign, the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party (MKKP) is carrying out the strongest and maybe most effective counter-campaign. Once again it is using comedy and satire to ridicule the government billboards.

The party raised about USD 100,000 from 4,000 donors to set up 1,000 of their own "Did you know?" billboards across the country with messages like these ones:

Other billboards of the party say:

• Did you know? An average Hungarian sees more UFOs in his lifetime than migrants.
• Did you know? Most crimes of corruption are committed by politicians.
• Did you know? Since the start of the migration crisis more than 300 people have travelled on the narrow-gauge railway in Felcsút.
• Did you know a tree might fall on your head?
• Did you know that in the 16th Century in Somogy county, 42 people were attacked by bears?
• Did you know? What?
• Did you know? No.
• Did you know? During the Olympics, the biggest danger to Hungarian participants came from foreign competitors.

Asselborn said back in May when Hungary's Parliament green-lighted the referendum that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán "will win this referendum" but the European Union will "die" if community matters are decided via popular vote.

He explained that the goal of the referendum is to achieve that "not a single migrant can come to Hungary." Orbán, he added, "will win this referendum", possibly causing other member states to follow suit. If this happens, "we can throw the European Convention on Human Rights on the garbage dump", hungarytoday cited Jean Asselborn as saying.

"With his usual arrogance, Jean Asselborn is rating those who don’t agree with him as second class Europeans," Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade replied.

According to Péter Szijjártó, Europe "will in fact die if its leaders cannot distinguish between refugees and illegal economic immigrants" and "if its leaders do not understand that they are primarily responsible for the safety and prosperity of the people who voted them into office".

• Tags:
• economy,
• politics,
• european union,
• refugee,
• mkkp,
• migrant