Category Archives: 2016 migrant-quota referendum

Referendum Homestretch on Hungarian Television

October 6, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis, Hungarian Television, propaganda Leave a comment

Below are screenshots taken from programs broadcast on the M1 news channel of state-run Hungarian Television from 3:00 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. on October 2, 2016—that is, until half an hour before the closing of polls in Hungary’s referendum on European Union migrant-resettlement quotas (see Hungary’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas and The Referendum That Couldn’t Fail).

Aside from intermittent weather bulletins and a report on the new leadership of the U.K. Labour Party, newscasts and programs broadcast on M1 during this three-and-a-half-hour period dealt with just two issues—the referendum results and migration.

The screenshots are from the various reports on migration. Note that in 2013, the National Assembly approved an amendment to Hungary’s electoral laws that eliminated campaign silence (source in Hungarian).

See entire post.

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The Referendum That Couldn’t Fail

October 3, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis, European Union Leave a comment

In February 2016, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán initiated a referendum in Hungary asking voters to respond to the following question (source in Hungarian):

Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the approval of the [Hungarian] National Assembly?

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Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks to supporters following the referendum on the European Union migrant-resettlement quota (photo: index.hu).

This question refers specifically to the resettlement of 1,294 Syrian, Iraqi and Eritrean refugees from Italy and Greece to Hungary as part of a European Union plan adopted in September 2015 (see 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas).

The result of the referendum in terms of approval or rejection of the European Union migrant-resettlement quota for Hungary was never in doubt: opinion polls consistently showed that the number of voters who rejected the quota was many times larger than the number of voters who accepted it (see “Opinion Polls” section of the relevant Wikipedia article).

The only question was: would voter turnout exceed the 50-percent threshold required for the referendum to be considered legally valid?

See entire post.

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Hungary’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Migrant Resettlement Quotas

September 11, 2016 By in 2016 migrant-quota referendum, European migrant crisis Leave a comment

Official name: Referendum against Compulsory Resettlement (Népszavazás a kényszerbetelepítés ellen).

Date: October 2, 2016.

Question: Do you want the European Union to be able to mandate the obligatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the approval of the [Hungarian] National Assembly? (Akarja-e, hogy az Európai Unió az Országgyűlés hozzájárulása nélkül is előírhassa nem magyar állampolgárok Magyarországra történő kötelező betelepítésé?)

Issue: The resettlement of 1,294 Syrian, Iraqi and Eritrean refugees from Italy (306 refugees) and Greece (988 refugees) to Hungary as part of a European Union plan adopted in September 2015 to transfer 120,000 such refugees from Italy and Greece to other EU member states over the subsequent two years (source in English).

Orbán government position: Rejects mandatory resettlement quotas.

See entire post.

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