Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said during a visit to Berlin on Friday (21 June) that Germany “no longer smelled and looked the same”, saying it had turned into a “colourful, multicultural world” due to migration.
The nationalist leader — who is staunchly anti-immigration — was set to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz later on Friday, when Hungary takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union on 1 July.
In his weekly interview on Hungarian state radio, Orbán said the face of Germany had changed beyond recognition compared to 10 years ago.
“Hundreds of thousands” of migrants have been “granted citizenship on a fast-track basis”, he claimed.
“If I compare this Germany with the Germany of 10 years ago, it doesn’t even look the same. It no longer smells the same,” Orbán said.
Once an example for its “hard-working people” and “order”, Orbán said Germany “is no longer that”.
“It is a colourful, changed multicultural world in which migrants coming in are no longer guests in this country,” he said.
Last year, Germany received 334,000 asylum applications, more than any other European Union country. Applications across the 27-nation bloc hit a seven-year high in 2023.
Germany has taken in close to a million refugees in the past two years, many fleeing conflict, persecution or poverty.
Orbán, who returned to power in 2010 and is the EU’s longest serving leader, touted his own country’s tough line on migration, claiming he had “preserved…an island of peace” in Hungary.
Earlier this month, the EU’s top court fined Hungary 200 million euros and imposed a daily one-million-euro penalty for failing to follow the bloc’s asylum laws and illegally deporting migrants.
Hungary itself is faced with a labour shortage caused by a declining population and the central European country of 9.6 million people has turned to foreign workers.
Over the last four years, the number of non-EU workers in Hungary has doubled, rising from 35,000 at the beginning of 2019 to 78,000 in March 2024, mainly from Asia, according to official statistics.
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Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
