05.09.2014 Viktor Orbán: Rroma shall exercise the activities of unskilled immigrants

Pester Lloyd (2014) reports on the latest speech of the Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in front of the Hungarian ambassadors in Budapest: In his speech, Orbán told that, in the last EU-meeting in Ypres, he pushed the idea that migration in Europe is fundamentally “wrong” and should be “abolished”: “The objective is to stop immigration completely”, because the “current liberal […] immigration policy, which is justified as morally and presented as inevitable, is hypocritical.” […] These policies, as well as Orbán’s statements, are based on an ethnically exclusionary, therefore ethnic-oriented “policy of nations”, as it is enshrined in the new constitution of the country, which the Fidesz introduced on its own. In it, ethnic Hungarians at home and abroad are classified as nation-building, the 13 recognized ethnic and national minorities however only as state-building; desired and tolerated people.” In this racist, ethno-nationalist policy of the Magyardom, Rroma take the role of unpleasant but tolerated workers that are supposed to carry out the jobs of unskilled immigrants: “Europe’s 10 million Roma could exercise the unskilled activities which today are mainly done by immigrants.” Orbán therefore ascribes the Rroma of Europe to be a bunch of uneducated day labourers, who must be kept busy by employment programs and shall undertake underpaid jobs such cleaning work. That he therewith denies a majority of integrated Rroma their existence, many of whom have good educational qualifications, and defames them, he seems to be indifferent to. The Rroma-network Romano Liloro consequently condemned Orbán’s statements strongly. What is needed are not employment programs that keep people in poverty, but educational opportunities that enable them a better future, the network states (compare Feher 2014, Gulyas 2014).