A referendum related to the European Union's migrant relocation plans was held in Hungary on 2 October 2016. The referendum was initiated by the government, under the provision of article 8 of the new constitution of 2012. It was commonly referred to as the kvótanépszavazás or kvótareferendum ("quota referendum") in the Hungarian media.
While an overwhelming majority of voters rejected the EU's migrant quotas, the share of valid votes was below the 50% required for the result to be considered valid.
Background
Hungary was one of the affected countries during the European migrant crisis. On 17 June 2015, Viktor Orbán's (third) Fidesz government announced the construction of a 175-kilometre-long fence along its southern border with Serbia.
On 22 September 2015, the European Union's interior ministers, meeting in the Justice and Home Affairs Council, approved a plan to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers over two years from the "frontline" states Italy, Greece and Hungary to all other EU countries, while Hungary would have to accept 1,294 refugees from other member states. However, Hungary voted against the relocation plan, so its 54,000 asylum seekers were not taken into consideration, with that number relocated to Italy and Greece instead. Following the decision, Hungary and Slovakia took legal action over EU's mandatory migrant quotas at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
On 24 February 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that the Hungarian government would hold a referendum on whether to accept the European Union's proposed mandatory quotas for relocating migrants. He also said it is "no secret that the Hungarian government [rejects] migrant quotas" and that it would be campaigning for "no" votes. Orbán argued the quota system would "redraw Hungary's and Europe's ethnic, cultural and religious identity, which no EU organ has the right to do". On 5 May, after examining legal challenges, the Supreme Court (Kúria) allowed the referendum to proceed. The National Assembly officially approved the referendum initiated by the government on 10 May. The initiative was approved with 136 votes cast in favour by the pro-government Fidesz and KDNP lawmakers, as well as the opposition Jobbik MPs, while the majority of left-wing opposition boycotted the plenary session. On 21 June, the Constitutional Court rejected all four appeals against plans to hold the referendum. Finally, President János Áder set 2 October 2016 as the date for the referendum.
Reactions
Immediately following the announcement, opposition parties reacted in different ways. The Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) agreed that approval of the National Assembly was indispensable to the resettlement of migrants to Hungary, but also demanded referendums on the issues of Sunday shopping (the third Orbán Government banned shops from opening on Sundays from 15 March 2015) and the new land law. The Democratic Coalition (DK) stated that, beside the migrant quota system, the government should hold referendums on three additional topics (Sunday shopping, financing of health care and dissolution of the centralized education system), without which they would call for a boycott. Together announced a demonstration against the referendum and called on the government not to "manipulate public opinion with phony, diversionary campaigns". Dialogue for Hungary (PM) called the government's referendum plan "legal nonsense" and a "desperate attempt to distract". The Hungarian Liberal Party (MLP) described the referendum as an "incorrect step" since, it argued, the European Union has no such legal term as "mandatory resettlement". Politics Can Be Different (LMP) did not take a position on the issue, but also considered the announcement a distraction from "important questions, such as land robbery, or prohibited Sunday shopping". Jobbik welcomed the government's step in a statement.
Speaking on behalf of the European Commission on 25 February, Natasha Bertaud said the executive body failed to understand "how [the referendum] would fit into the decision-making process which was agreed to by all member states, including Hungary, under EU treaties". Later that day, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship in the Juncker Commission, said the referendum "belongs to Hungary's internal affairs", but added "the isolated initiatives do not lead anywhere. At the moment, the unity of the [European] Union and human lives are at stake. [...]". The Dutch EU presidency responded, "Every country has the right to hold referendums". Pasi Rajala, an advisor to Finnish Finance Minister Alexander Stubb sarcastically suggested "Should we have a referendum too? »Do you agree that Finland & others pay Hungary €22bn in structural funds & €3.45bn for rural development?«". Spanish Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro said that the widespread use of referendums on issues like these may lead to the "death" of the European Union. The following day, Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament described the Hungarian government's call to referendum as "an ideological decision", one "not warranted by a lack of resources or capacity [for migrants]", because Hungary had to accept only 1,294 asylum seekers according to the decision on relocations. In March 2016, Schulz called the referendum plan "absurd" and a "despicable idea".
In May 2016, four major NGOs (the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, the Eötvös Károly Institute, and Political Capital) argued that the Constitution of Hungary did not allow such a referendum, and that the Supreme Court erred in allowing it. Whereas, according to Article 8 (2): "National referendums may be held about any matter falling within the functions and powers of the National Assembly", Article 8 (3) states: "No national referendum may be held on [...] any obligation arising from international treaties". According to critics, the legal validity of the question as formulated was doubtful, given the primacy of EU law over national law. Under that doctrine, laid down by the European Court of Justice as in the 1964 Costa v ENEL case, a validly adopted EU act pre-empts any conflicting act under national law from being applied. Hence, a national referendum (or law) could not override the decision of the EU Council of Ministers to relocate asylum seekers within the EU.
Several domestic and foreign political scientists and journalists argued that the Orbán government planned for the referendum to be the first step towards a Hungarian withdrawal from the European Union ("Huxit"). Reuters wrote in July 2016 that "Hungary's migrant referendum shows Europe's post-Brexit challenge". After ambiguous statements by government member János Lázár and spokesperson Zoltán Kovács, Democratic Coalition-member Csaba Molnár accused that the "Orbán Cabinet, through the referendum, will request authorization [from the people] to leave the European Union". In contrast, Index.hu argued that Lázár and Kovács's statements were [part] of a deliberate campaign strategy, since the government intended to mobilize the party voters by raising the stakes of the referendum. Fidesz MEP András Gyürk denied such plans in his blog entry, saying that "[...] By holding the referendum, Hungary wants to save the EU from going down a path that will further destabilize the EU and member state governments" and quoted Orbán's statement that "we believe in a strong European Union".
In August 2016, the Brussels-based European edition of Politico described the event as "Viktor Orbán's Potemkin referendum". The journal argued "Hungary actually needs migrants, even if it doesn't want them", citing that Hungarian businesses were suffering from skilled labor shortages. According to The Economist, the referendum was a "challenge to the authority of Brussels and the leadership of Germany's Angela Merkel, who champions the relocation scheme". Nick Thorpe, Budapest correspondent of BBC News argued that the main purpose of the referendum was that Orbán "wants to play a bigger role on the European stage, as a 'champion of the concerns of ordinary Europeans' against the actions of 'an unelected, liberal elite', as interpreted by the premier himself". Thorpe added that the only consequences of the referendum would be "political", suggesting that through the Visegrád Four, an alternative power bloc could arise based on the "Europe of Nations" concept, in opposition to the mainstream federal vision for Europe primarily supported by France and Germany. Gerald Knaus, chairman of the European Stability Initiative said Orbán was using the referendum as a tool to launch a "cultural counter-revolution" within the EU which would lead to the "end of liberal Europe".
Referendum question
The referendum was:
Akarja-e, hogy az Európai Unió az Országgyűlés hozzájárulása nélkül is előírhassa nem magyar állampolgárok Magyarországra történő kötelező betelepítését?
In English:
Do you want to allow the European Union to mandate the resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens to Hungary without the approval of the National Assembly?
A more literal translation into English, mirroring the Hungarian wording and inflections more closely:
Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens into Hungary even without the approval of the National Assembly?
Campaign
Position of political parties
Bold: parties with parliamentary representation at the time of the referendum
Campaign methods
Yes
The Hungarian Liberal Party (MLP) was the only political party to openly campaign in favour of the compulsory quota system and asked its supporters to vote "yes" in the referendum. On 1 July 2016, party leader Gábor Fodor wrote an open letter to other opposition party leaders asking them to endorse "yes" votes. He wrote that after Brexit, "Europe lost the birthplace of the modern democracy and the primary representative of the Atlantic values", and Orbán's referendum would be another disaster for the European Union. The MLP's foreign policy advisor István Szent-Iványi said in August 2016 that the support of "yes" votes "is the only way to stand up for European values, Hungary's belonging to Europe and European solidarity", and criticized the stances of left-wing parties. He claimed that the EU migrant quota system in fact is a "non-existent legal concept", and argued that the referendum has a "very bad political message" which weakens the cooperation between the European nations.
The Liberals took out a loan of HUF 12 million to pay for 150 billboards with pro-Yes messages, such as "If you stay home, Orbán remains upon us. Vote Yes!" Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE), who called the referendum question "leading and manipulative", and said it undermines the common European solution, actively participated in the MLP's campaign. In a video message, he said the Hungarian people was forced to "choose between Hungary and Europe". He urged the voters to "say Yes to Europe, and say Yes to the European future of Hungary!" Former ALDE Party President Graham Watson also expressed his support to the Liberal Party's quota campaign.
Several journalists, bloggers and other opposition parties criticized the Liberal Party's campaign for "Yes" votes, because, as they argued, "participation legitimizes an illegitimate and unconstitutional referendum" and brought the vote total closer to the threshold of validity. Fodor responded that "[A] Yes vote...would mean that Hungary is a constructive member of the European Union ready to share the burden of the refugee crisis facing Europe. Sitting at home...is simply cowardly". Democratic Coalition chairman and former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány said in an interview at ATV that Fidesz caucus leader Lajos Kósa promised budgetary support to opposition parties (without specific mention of the Liberals) which campaigned for "Yes" votes (the purpose of which would be to raise overall participation to the 50% of the electorate required for such a referendum to be legally valid). The Liberal Party denied this in a press release in September 2016.