18th July, 2018
PHOTO: Hungarytoday
Hungary will quit the UN migration pact before its final approval, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday, adding that the accord posed a “threat to the world”.
“This document is entirely against Hungary’s security interests,” Szijjarto told a news conference.
The accord is to be formally adopted in December, but Hungary will not take part at the Morocco meeting, Szijjarto said, adding that the country would also oppose the pact should it come up for a vote in the General Assembly.
On July 13, the UN completed the agreement on improved ways to handle the global flow of migrants — a pact particularly notable because it was boycotted by a huge and influential member, the U.S.
The agreement, the Global Compact for Sale, Orderly and Regular Migration, was negotiated at a time that the conversations about migration and refugees have grown increasingly divisive in much of the Western world.
The United States had initially participated in the negotiations, but it abruptly withdrew in December 2017 under orders from the Trump administration, which has taken an increasingly hostile view toward cross-border migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
It argued that such multinational agreements subverted the power of individual governments to control national borders.
The agreement is expected to be formally adopted in December during a meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, but members of the UN rose and applauded as the agreement was announced at its New York headquarters.
The goal of the agreement is to preserve the basic human rights of all migrants.
More than 258 million people worldwide are international migrants, according to the UN, and that number will only grow in coming years.
And migration has proved dangerous and even deadly for those on the move.