Hungary Plans Referendum On Refugee Quotas

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban says his country will hold a referendum on the EU's refugee quotas.

The right-wing leader has consistently opposed the quota system which was agreed by EU member states last September.

The plan, drawn up by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, is to redistribute 120,000 asylum seekers across the 28-member bloc.

The system was designed to deal with the influx of hundreds of thousands of people into the EU from Africa and Asia.

Some countries on the migrants' route into Europe, like Italy, Malta and Greece, were claiming they were being forced to take in a disproportionate number of arrivals.

Mr Orban said the quotas - which would result in the removal of some asylum seekers to countries where there were less - would redraw the ethnic, cultural and religious map of Hungary and Europe.

He told a news conference: "The government is responding to public sentiment now, we think that introducing resettlement quotas for migrants without the backing of the people equals an abuse of power."

The Prime Minister did not say when the referendum would be held.

Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic and Slovakia also opposed the quota system when it was pushed through by qualified majority. Finland abstained.

Hungary subsequently launched a legal challenge against the system at the European Court.

At the time, Hungary was building a fence along its southern border to stop migrants, including refugees, entering the country.

Like the UK government - which has opted out of the quota system - Hungary believes that the solution to the migration crisis is to improve conditions for those living in refugee camps around Syria's borders.

Changes to the EU's Dublin rules, which state that refugees are required to apply for asylum in the country they arrive in the bloc, are due to be published in March,paving the way for the quotas to be introduced.

It comes as several thousand migrants have been left stranded in Greece after Macedonian authorities closed the border to migrants from Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, the International Organisation for Migration said more than 110,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy so far this year, with 413 losing their lives while trying.