The Hungarian government was embarrassed today when turnout for a referendum seeking support for its opposition to any future European Union quotas to relocate refugees was too low to make it valid.

Nearly 8.3 million citizens were eligible to vote but only 45 per cent cast their vote and 5 per cent of the votes were invalid.

Turnout needed to exceed the 50% plus-one-vote threshold to be valid.

The referendum's question was: "Do you want the European Union to be able to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary even without the consent of Parliament?"

Some 95 per cent of Hungarians who voted rejected the quotas.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban hailed the result as "outstanding".

"Thirteen years after a large majority of Hungarians voted at a referendum to join the European Union, today Hungarians made their voices heard again in a European issue," Orban told a news conference. "We have achieved an outstanding result, because we have surpassed the outcome of the accession referendum."

Orban said he would still submit an amendment to Hungary's constitution to put the result of the plebiscite into law.

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