Lawmakers in Hungary on Tuesday rejected a proposed national ban on refugees relocated from elsewhere in the EU, dealing a rare defeat to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban last month submitted a plan to ban the refugees in the form of a constitutional amendment after a similar proposal failed to pass by referendum because of insufficient voter turnout.
He has vowed to block a EU program that would resettle refugees from the Middle East and Africa who have gone to countries like Greece and Italy.
According to that program, Hungary, a nation of 10 million, would have to accept 1,294 of a total of about 160,000 refugees.
The amendment needed two-thirds of sitting members of the 199-member parliament to pass. It got 131 votes on Tuesday — two shy of the threshold. Three lawmakers voted no and the rest abstained.
The Jobbik party, which is part of the official opposition, but usually sides with Orban’s Fidesz party on migration issues, was crucial to the defeat of the amendment.
Gabor Vona, a lawmaker and the leader of Jobbik, said that his party would support only a solution that “defends Hungary and Hungarian people, not just from poor migrants, but from rich migrants; not just from poor terrorists, but from rich terrorists.”
He was referring to a rule that allows foreigners who invest at least 300,000 euros (US$332,000) in Hungarian bonds to acquire residency. The program dates to 2012.
The Fidesz party has been politically weaker since last year, when it lost its super-majority in parliament. That advantage had allowed the government to rewrite the constitution and to pass legislation to rein in the judiciary and the press, packing some of the country’s top institutions with political allies.
Analysts on Tuesday were cautious in interpreting the defeat of the amendment as a sign of the government’s declining political power.
“I wouldn’t say that this is a huge failure for Orban — it’s a failure, but a minor one,” said Csaba Toth, the director of strategy for the Republikon Institute, a research and advocacy group that has been critical of Orban’s government. “This is the second time the government can’t have their own way, which is important for a group whose main governing strategy is power.”
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