BRUSSELS (AP) — Hungary’s prime minister used war metaphors Friday to describe the scale of the division over migration issues in the European Union as countries in central and eastern Europe held out against taking in more refugees.
In a Facebook video subtitled in English, Viktor Orban colorfully described a dinner at an EU summit in Brussels that apparently went until past midnight. Smiling, he said: “It’s 12:40 a.m. We struggled with each other til now. It was close combat, a type of political close combat.”
He said the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks “did well in battle” against those wanting them to take in refugees languishing in camps in Italy and Greece.
“We held on to our positions, but we could not convince our adversaries,” Orban said, saying the battle would continue at the next scheduled EU summit in March.
There has been a bitter east-west rift within the bloc for more than two years over how to manage the migrant challenge.
The disagreement has created distrust between EU neighbors and boosted anti-migrant parties across Europe, threatening the European project itself even as it faces Brexit and other problems.
On Thursday the four central European countries announced that they planned to spend around 35 million euros ($41 million) to beef up EU borders.
While other leaders welcomed the move, some felt it still wasn’t enough or even saw a cynical ploy to avoid sharing the burden of taking refugees.
Orban said in his video that despite agreement on securing the borders, there are still “strong forces” that seek to bring migrants into Europe and redistribute them.
The Hungarian leader, who built razor-wire fences in 2015 to keep migrants out of his country, has depicted himself as protecting Christian Europe from an invasion of Muslims — a point he seeks to stress as he faces re-election next year.
