Hungary says migrant referendum not before August

(BUDAPEST) - Hungary's justice minister said Friday a planned referendum on the EU's mandatory migrant quota will not happen before August, and that the bloc has no right to force migrants on member states.

"The referendum can take place in around 150 to 250 days," Laszlo Trocsanyi told a press conference, meaning the ballot will take place some time between August and December.

Trocsanyi said the European Union "did not receive powers to relocate people into a country", and insisted the referendum -- "about an important question affecting sovereignty" -- was in line both with Hungary's constitution and EU law.

The proposed referendum question, awaiting approval from the National Election Committee, will ask: "Do you want the EU to prescribe the mandatory relocation of non-Hungarian citizens to Hungary without the approval of the Hungarian parliament?".

Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government voted against an EU plan in September to distribute 160,000 asylum-seekers among member states via quotas, and in December joined Slovakia in filing a legal complaint.

So far, only 598 have been relocated, with Hungary not taking a single one. If Hungarian voters reject the quotas in the referendum, as surveys suggest, this would be another blow for the troubled scheme.

Orban, whose hardline in the EU's migrant crisis saw him seal Hungary's southern borders, announced the referendum on Wednesday, saying Brussels has no right to "redraw Europe's cultural and religious identity."

European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said Thursday that Brussels "fail[s] to understand how (the ballot) would fit into the decision-making process agreed to by all EU member states under the treaties."