The future of Europe’s elections will be all about migration

Milos Bicanski | Getty Images

Frontex police escort migrants, who are being deported from Lesbos, onto a ferry before it returns to Turkey on April 4, 2016, in Lesbos, Greece.

The determining factor in Europe’s forthcoming elections will be migration over anything else — even the economy, Hungary’s foreign affairs and trade minister told CNBC.

“If you put into consideration the last three national parliamentary elections of Europe — Hungary, Austria, Italy — you’ll see that the parties that receive the most votes … (are) those who have a very clear policy on migration, an anti-migration policy,” Peter Szijjarto told CNBC Thursday at the annual forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris.

“It’s obvious that migration became the key factor of deciding the outcome of national parliamentary elections.”

Szijjarto represents the government of Viktor Orban, the nationalist firebrand who’s been called “the troublemaker of Europe” for his self-proclaimed disregard for the EU’s traditional liberal democratic values. Orban was overwhelmingly re-elected as prime minister in April, promising tough crackdowns on migration and prioritization of border security as key rallying points.