The Hungarian government will ask its citizens for their opinion on the EU plan for the redistribution of refugees. Yet Budapest is only expected to take in fewer than 1,300.
After the one on Brexit, another referendum could shake the EU. This time, all eyes will be on Hungary, which will not ask its citizens whether they want to leave Europe, but rather whether they intend to accept the refugee redistribution plan — covering people coming largely from Syria — drawn up by Brussels. A decision taken despite the fact that the nation led by conservative Viktor Orbán has been asked for a truly modest commitment: to find a way to take in 1,294 asylum seekers, out of a total of 160,000 currently stranded largely in Italy and Greece.
For some time now, the Budapest government has stated its intention to take the country to the polls. Orbán's objective is to be able to invoke, in the event of a vote against EU rules, a "democratic mandate" requiring the non-acceptance of the plan, and the consequent rejection of refugees.
The issue is, in fact, a genuine hobby horse for the Hungarian executive. It is no coincidence that the way in which the referendum question will be put to citizens makes the government's position unmistakably clear: "Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory resettlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the approval of the Hungarian Parliament?" Orbán has also already launched his "no" campaign, unabashedly raising the spectre of possible "terrorists infiltrated" among the refugees.
The referendum will be held on 2 October — the same day on which the second round of the presidential election in neighbouring Austria will be rerun, after the alpine nation's Constitutional Court ruled that the run-off held on 22 May was invalid; that ballot had seen Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen beat his far-right rival, the leader of the Fpoe party Norbert Hofer, by the slimmest of margins.
The risk is that Europe will wake up on the morning of the 3rd with one nation led by a Europhobic, populist government, and another refusing to take in a handful of desperate people fleeing war and poverty. For its part, the European Commission has recalled that the migrant relocation programme was approved through "a decision-making process supported by all member states", and that it is legally binding and already under way.
The reality, however, is that the plan is moving forward in small steps: to date, only 2,783 asylum seekers have already been received in nineteen EU countries (plus Switzerland), according to figures released by Brussels' executive body itself.