MEPs criticise Viktor Orban over immigration questionnaire

European lawmakers have rounded on plans by Viktor Orban, Hungary's prime minister, to poll 8m of the country's citizens on whether they agreed that immigrants endanger their livelihoods and spread terrorism.

The national consultation will ask respondents whether they agree with 12 statements linking immigration to threats to security and incomes. An accompanying letter, which along with the questionnaire will be sent next month to every Hungarian citizen, also suggests that the government could hold illegal immigrants in detention centres and make new arrivals pay for the costs of their stay.

"As Brussels has failed to address immigration appropriately, Hungary must follow its own path," Mr Orban writes in his letter. "We shall not allow economic migrants to jeopardise the jobs and livelihoods of Hungarians."

However, the plan drew condemnation from members of the European Parliament, with Sophie in 't Veld, a Dutch liberal MEP, saying the consultation was "manipulative and leading".

Louis Michel, a Belgian liberal lawmaker, also condemned the survey as "ethically untenable".

"This stigma that systematically links the migrant with a criminal can only come from a far-right populism where xenophobia is at the very root of ideology," Mr Michel said.

The letter underlines Mr Orban's increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric.

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Analysts also criticised the wording of the Hungarian poll, saying it did not meet standards for objective polling and may manipulate public views of migrants, rather than reflect them. "All these questions tend to push a negative view of migration. They are extremely unbalanced," said Scott Blinder, politics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. "The fact that they have sent this questionnaire to everyone instead of a random sample also suggests that they are after something more than public opinion."

Mr Orban has increasingly spoken of the threats that migrants pose to Hungary as he seeks to stymie the rise of the radical rightwing Jobbik party.

Jobbik, Hungary's second-largest party, won a breakthrough by-election in the town of Tapolca in April and advocates closing the EU's external borders.

Hungary experienced a spike in asylum applications in 2015, as over 20,000 Kosovans crossed the border from Serbia amid rumours of a relaxation in border rules. The vast majority travelled onwards to Austria and Germany.

<>One government lawmaker said Mr Orban's beliefs on the links between uncontrolled migration and Islamic extremism had been deepened by the terrorist murders in January of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine. "It was an important personal experience for him - it reinforced his earlier ideas that the threats of migration had not been realised properly in western Europe."

In further criticism of Mr Orban, EU lawmakers also condemned his suggestion this week that reintroducing the death penalty should be on the political agenda.

Rebecca Harms, co-president of the Green party grouping in the European Parliament, said Mr Orban's comments "underline his continued drift away from European values".

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