2023-11-26 05:00:06
A few dozen residents crowded together, Wednesday, November 15, in the small, overheated room of the municipal council of Berettyoujfalu, a town of 14,000 inhabitants lost in eastern Hungary. The situation is serious, according to the mayor, Istvan Muraközi, who urgently called this public meeting to talk “the problem of the 150 Indian workers who appeared by surprise” in October on the territory of this commune typical of the deep Magyar countryside where we have never seen any immigrants, especially non-Europeans.
“That’s already 1% of our population”, worries this fifty-year-old with the look of a peaceful civil servant, with his checked shirt and tidy hair. Elected from Fidesz, the nationalist and anti-immigrant party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, he promises: “It wasn’t the town hall that brought in” these young men. Accommodated in a former dilapidated boarding school and a gloomy holiday village planted near a pond, they are employed on the construction site of the future BMW electric car factory, which is due to open in 2025 in Debrecen, Hungary’s second city, at forty-five minutes by bus from there.
Istvan Muraközi, Mayor of Berettyoujfalu, holds a public hearing on “guest” workers, November 15, 2023. ANDRAS ZOLTAI FOR “THE WORLD”
“I have no problem with bringing in guest workers”, specifies the councilor, who is careful not to criticize Mr. Orban. After years of anti-immigration messages, the latter has made an about-face. Since 2022, the government has let tens of thousands of Asian workers come to fill the glaring labor shortage in its country, in the midst of a demographic decline and where unemployment is below 5%. “But I do not agree with having guest worker homes in our residential neighborhoods or next to our hospitals or schools”he complains, deliberately using the government’s term, which carefully avoids the word “immigrant” in favor of that of “guest”.
Resident Viktor Fülöp shares his opinion on “guest” workers, in Berettyoujfalu, November 15, 2023. ANDRAS ZOLTAI FOR “THE WORLD”
“Not to mention that they have five-year leases and we have no idea what country, what religion, what culture they will come from. This poses a problem for security and our health system. » In the room, a fifty-year-old who says he lives meagerly on benefits for disabled people jumps up: “Orban promised on TV that he wouldn’t let foreigners take Hungarians’ jobs, and now I’m afraid my grandchildren will be forced to learn Filipino. » “Fidesz has been telling us for thirteen years that we should not bring in immigrants and, now, they are the ones bringing them in. This is completely hypocritical! »adds an entrepreneur.
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