French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that European countries would not be allowed to pick and choose only policies that they like, but rather must share the burden of mass immigration.
This speech was largely aimed at the Eastern European countries who have consistently refused to take in Middle-Eastern and African migrants after seeing the damage done to Western countries, with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia putting up the biggest fights with the EU.
“We have a collective need for coherence and solidarity: we cannot benefit from the European budget without demonstrating solidarity on migration,” Macron said.
According to the French President “Europe is not a supermarket”, meaning that member states can’t choose fundamental European values and ignore others.
Talking about EU states that want to reduce their payments into the common budget could he said:
“We cannot try to reduce our contribution to the European budget without understanding what the single market brings. If we want to kill Europe, we should continue like this,” Macron said. “Europe isn’t a one-way street: it is a reciprocal commitment,” he added.
Despite Macron’s words though, the majority of Eastern Europeans have no appetite for mass immigration and will continue to defy the EU on this matter.