BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's government spokesman says the European Union should adopt strict rules regarding immigration and that asylum seekers should return to their countries of origin after the crises there have passed.
Spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said Tuesday that Hungary will maintain its own tough rules regarding immigration to avoid issues "existing in some Western European countries."
The number of asylum seekers in Hungary rose to 42,700 in 2014 from 18,900 in 2013, a trend Prime Minister Viktor Orban called "alarming," saying many of them were really economic migrants, not people fleeing persecution.
Analyst Tamas Boros of Policy Solutions said the issue of immigration, raised after the France attacks earlier this month, was being used by the government to steer attention away from several unpopular measures introduced recently.