Hungary wants to hold vote on EU migrants plan

BERLIN — Hungary's prime minister said Wednesday that he wants to hold a national referendum on a key aspect of the European Union's stalled migrants plan.

Viktor Orban said te public should vote on a mandatory redistribution program for migrants and refugees proposed by the EU.

He said the question would be: “Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?”

The EU's resettlement program calls for about 160,000 asylum seekers from the front-line nations of Greece and Italy to be more fairly relocated across the 28-nation bloc, but it has struggled to gain traction amid dissenting nations, particularly in eastern Europe.

The development came as Austria held a summit with Balkan states Wednesday over Europe's migrant crisis, and agreed to tighter border controls. "It is not possible to process unlimited numbers of migrants and applicants for asylum,” the summit said in a statement afterward.

The conference in Vienna titled "Managing Migration Together" included foreign and interior ministers from Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.

Greece, which was excluded from the talks, neighbors Macedonia to the south and is the main landing point for displaced people who move on through the Balkans on their way to northern Europe. Sebastian Kurz, Austria's foreign minister, said ahead of the summit that Greece had shown "no interest in reducing the (migrant influx) and was continuing to wave them through (to Macedonia)."

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias shot back Wednesday that his "country’s non-invitation to this meeting is perceived as a non-friendly act, as it creates the impression that some, in our absence, want to initiate decisions that affect us directly."

And Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras criticized EU countries that “not only erect fences on their borders but at the same time do not accept to take in a single refugee.”

Balkan countries have imposed stricter border rules in recent days, resulting in more migrants stranded in Greece.

The tougher restrictions by Balkan countries came after Austria introduced a cap last week on the number of people — 80 — it allows to apply for asylum each day. At the same time, Austria said it would restrict to 3,200 the number of migrants entering its territory on a daily basis.

“There are about 12,000 (stranded) people right now," Greece's Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas said Wednesday on Greek television. "Tomorrow it could be 14,000 and then 16,000 the following day. Eventually there will be tens of thousands." He said Greece was trying to "keep people in humane conditions."

Farther north in Belgium, Interior Minister Jan Jambon said this week that his country was taking steps to strengthen its border with France amid the expected closure of a controversial migrant camp in Calais known as the "Jungle." Belgium fears a wave of people crossing into the country if the camp is closed.

Amnesty International, in its annual report published Wednesday, said, "The EU, the world’s richest political bloc with a total population of over 500 million people, singularly failed to come up with a coherent, humane and rights-respecting response" to the migrant crisis.

Germany, Europe's largest recipient of migrants — more than 1 million last year — has concentrated on working with Turkey to stem the flow of people trying to reach the continent.