A M ESSAGE TO H UNGARY E XECUTIVE SUMMARY On February 24, 2016 the Hungarian government has called for a referendum with the following question appearing on the ballot:"Do you want the European Union to be entitled to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of parliament?" The government is urging people to vote against the transfer quota, to cast a“No” vote. However, the initiative is misguided in several respects; for this reason, the present study examines the quota referendum from a number of aspects. We discuss the Hungarian treatment of the refugee crisis, the government’s rhetoric, the legal aspects of the refere ndum question, its impact on the EU, and the different responses that citizens may give to the referendum initiative. T HE GOVERNMENT ’ S RHETORIC REGARDING THE REFUGEES The“National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism” and the associated“informational” campaign conducted during the first half of 2015 should be seen as a direct preparation for the quota referendum. It has been the explicit purpose of both the consultation and the referendum to provide legitimacy for some future, as yet unspecified measures of the government and to represent these as expressing the unanimous will of the electorate. To achieve this, the so-called informational campaigns, the one that groomed the public for the consultation in 2015 and the other that has been leading up t o the referendum at present, appeal to people’s fears and prejudices. They merge the issues of immigration and terrorism, criminalize asylum-seekers by consistently referring to them as illegal immigrants, and they draw a sharp contrast between national interests and the European Union – the leading caption of the 2016 campaign saying “We must send a message to Brussels that they will understand”. The propaganda campaign messages, masquerading as public service announcements, repeat and reinforce stereotypes and prejudices about immigration and refugees, feeding moral panic and intensifying pre-existing xenophobic sentiments and generating hysteria. As documented by multiple surveys, the government’s rhetoric has the effect of increasing the Hungarian public’ xenophobia.