European Union Pressuring Hungary to Ease Its Strict Anti-Migration Policies

The European Union (EU) continues to pressure one of its member states, Hungary, in hopes of compelling it to stop violating asylum rules.

Hungary renewed its threat to send asylum seekers to other EU countries in an effort to pressure the bloc into lifting hefty fines imposed on Budapest due to its strict anti-immigration policies.

Strict Policy

On September 6, 2024, Hungary’s Parliamentary Secretary of State of the Ministry of Human Resources, Bence Retvari, standing in front of a line of buses, said that his country will voluntarily and free of charge provide one-way travel to Brussels for these irregular migrants following the European procedure.

This threat came after Hungary announced on July 6, 2024, that it would not pay a multimillion-euro fine imposed by the EU’s top court for violating asylum rules.

“If Brussels wants illegal migrants, Brussels can have them,” Retvari said.

In June 2024, the European Court of Justice fined Hungary €200 million, in addition to a daily penalty of €1 million, for failing to comply with a 2020 ruling that required it to adhere to international procedures for asylum seekers.

Bence Retvari said his country does not plan to pay this fine because it is entirely “unfair.”

In a press statement, he added that this fine is a form of political pressure because of Hungary’s approach to handling irregular migration.

Contrary to EU regulations, Budapest only allows asylum seekers to submit their applications at Hungarian embassies abroad.

In December 2020, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found that Hungary had not allowed asylum seekers to leave their detention centers while their cases were being reviewed and had failed to provide special protection for children and other vulnerable individuals.

In June 2024, the court stated that Budapest continued to restrict migrants from submitting asylum applications.

According to Deputy Interior Minister Retvari, his country believes that through the “unfair, gigantic, and disproportionately large fine imposed by the European Court, they aim to force us into accepting irregular migrants en masse and abandoning our previous migration policy, which is centered on protecting external borders and conducting asylum procedures outside the borders,” as quoted by Radio Free Europe.

“There is no legal barrier preventing migrants from being transported by bus from Roszke [border crossing] to the EU headquarters in Brussels.”

Retvari emphasized that “the core of Hungary's approach is the protection of external borders, with asylum regulations aligned with international agreements.”

He claimed that since 2015, Hungarian police and border guards have prevented one million illegal border crossing attempts, adding that had they not intervened, hundreds of thousands more migrants would now be in Europe.

“In recent years, approximately 800 billion Hungarian forints [around $2.2 billion] have been spent on border protection, and Brussels can contribute to that since EU borders are being protected,” added Retvari.

According to the European Court’s ruling, Hungary is required to pay €200 million. If its asylum regulations are not changed, a coercive fine exceeding €80 million will follow.

The deadline for the first payment has already passed, so the European Commission sent a second notice to Hungary with a shorter deadline, set for September 17, 2024. If the Hungarian government does not comply, this amount will be deducted from other legitimate payments, such as financial subsidies allocated to Budapest from the EU.

Hungary’s Justifications

Hungary's strict application of asylum laws and refusal to grant irregular migrants, who enter the country through unlawful means, protection is seen as an unprecedented and severe violation of EU law from Budapest's perspective.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban openly supports a conspiracy theory alleging that migrants of color are being deliberately brought in to replace white Europeans, placing him at odds with Brussels over migration and refugee policy.

Hungary also opposes the recent EU reform of laws governing the handling of asylum seekers and migrants.

“We have done everything to protect ourselves, Germany, Austria, and Europe. So, if I understand it correctly, we stand on the same side,” said Orban.

PM Orban said he recommended that Brussels should not penalize Hungary over its refusal to take in migrants, rather Brussels and other EU capitals should adopt Hungary’s migration policy. “Suddenly everything would become simpler,” he added.

On May 14, 2024, the EU Council officially adopted a comprehensive reform of migration and asylum laws. This package tightens measures at the EU's borders and compels all member states to share the responsibility for incoming migrants.

Under the new reforms, countries receiving a high number of asylum requests will be able to demand that asylum seekers be sent to other European states.

This means that Hungary and Poland, both of which voted against the entire reform plan, will be forced to grant refugee status to those who qualify and return those who do not.

The European Commission announced that if Budapest refuses to pay the fine, it will deduct the amount from Hungary’s allocated but unpaid funding.

Additionally, Brussels has frozen €19 billion in funds for Hungary due to other measures.

Although nearly 13% of the EU’s external land borders are fenced, tens of thousands of refugees still pass through Hungary, defying the border fence that has become a symbol.

In 2022, over 900,000 asylum applications were submitted in the EU, an increase of nearly 50% from the previous year.

That same year, 330,000 illegal border crossings were reported, a 64% increase compared to the previous year.

As a frontline state, Hungary received the fewest international protection requests, with 40 in 2021 and 50 in 2022.

Hungary’s current asylum system is strict, requiring applicants to submit a declaration of intent at foreign embassies. If approved, they can travel to Hungary to submit their asylum application. This system effectively makes it difficult to seek asylum on Hungarian soil.

Hungary promotes its restrictive asylum policies by positioning itself as a defender of Christian culture in Europe, with nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban stating that he does not want Hungary to become a mixed-race nation.

While Hungarian politicians openly vilify migrants, Aniko Bakonyi, the director of the Refugee Program at the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, explains some of the factors behind this hardline stance. 

For the current government of Hungary, “anti-migrant, anti-refugee rhetoric is really central,” Bakonyi told Migrant News. 

“They invested really heavily into this propaganda,” she explains. “With lots of public ads, and poster campaigns all through the country.”

Adel Sarolta Szabo, project leader at Menedek, a Hungarian association for migrants, explains that around 2015, the government started to use the word “migrant,” with a negative connotation. 

“Differentiating migrants from asylum seekers, and portraying them as people who “want to come here to take our jobs is the propaganda which the government has been repeating, for almost 10 years,” she notes. 

“It makes our work harder, because it's really hard for migrants to find jobs, to rent a flat, and also deal with administrative issues. And so it's harder for us to help them in these issues," says Sarolta Szabo.

Although, she points out that “it's not just the far right, which is influencing the immigration policy of our country, it's also populism and fear. It's easier to manipulate people and be a good populist leader if people fear something.”

‘A Migrant Filter’

Prime Minister Orban, who leads a hardline nationalist government, has long been a thorn in the EU's side.

Orban is also an ally of former U.S. President Donald Trump and is considered the closest to Russian President Vladimir Putin among the 27 EU leaders.

Hungary, however, tries to market itself as a “migrant filter,” where migrants fear being caught and prefer to flee the country as quickly as possible.

Hungary frequently exerts pressure on the EU by releasing hundreds of migrant smugglers in protest of Brussels' migration policies.

The European Court concluded in its ruling that Hungary had failed to take the necessary measures to comply with the 2020 judgment concerning access to international protection procedures, particularly regarding the right of applicants for such protection to appeal.

The court also found that Hungary had rejected legally defined refugee residency applications and deported third-country nationals residing illegally.

According to the European Court, this behavior significantly threatens the harmonization of EU asylum laws and regulations.

Notably, the refusal of some EU countries to accommodate refugees violates the principle of solidarity and fair burden-sharing among member states.

With migration to Europe expected to increase, the bloc aims to regulate its migration and asylum laws under the new legislation. However, the EU aspires to achieve consensus on this issue without opposition from its members.

Hungary is one of the European countries that pursues policies of making deals with transit and origin countries to reduce the number of asylum seekers. In this context, Hungary became the first European country to raise its diplomatic ties with the Syrian regime, in early 2020, in an effort to reduce the flow of refugees.