If Brussels wants migrants, it can have them: Hungary's new plan for asylum-seekers

In an effort to curb migration, Hungary’s government said that it is ready to give every migrant trying to enter Budapest, a one-way ticket to Brussels. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s administration insisted they would have to take this action if a top EU court ruling forced the European nation to adopt a “no-detention” refugee policy.

“After the asylum procedure, we will offer all migrants at the Hungarian border the opportunity to be transported to Brussels voluntarily and free of charge,” Gergely Gulyás, a minister in Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s office said in a government’s weekly briefing on Thursday. “If Brussels wants migrants, it can have them," he added.

Gulyás exclaimed that the asylum seekers “can then negotiate there with the European Commission about their own care.” The remarks from Hungary came months after the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a fine of 200 million euros against Budapest for ignoring EU asylum laws.

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Why is Hungary in trouble?

The country which has been ruled by Orbán’s right-wing Fidesz party, has been notorious for taking a hard stance against asylum-seekers entering the country. In 2020, a court in Luxembourg ruled that Budapest failed to comply with the European Union’s rules on the treatment of migrants by “unlawfully detaining” asylum-seekers and deporting them before they could appeal the rejection of their applications.

The top EU court has been urging Hungary to change its refugee policy, however, the Orban government has often ignored the directives. In June this year, ECJ called out Hungary for ignoring the matter and called the whole ordeal an “unprecedented and exceptionally serious breach of EU law.”

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In addition to the 200 million euro fine, Hungary was also asked to pay 1 million euros for each day it failed to comply with the court’s ruling. Budapest in turn filed a lawsuit and is now hoping to recover some of these costs from the European Commission.

Hungary’s proposal has a US connect

In the Thursday briefing, Gulyás emphasised that Hungary is unable to come to a “reasonable agreement” with the Commission and accused the ECJ of creating an “unacceptable, intolerable and unfair” situation. He insisted that if the matter is not resolved, Budapest will be taking “unorthodox steps” and will let all asylum-seekers into the country and offering them a one-way ticket to Brussels.

Interestingly, the proposal made by the Hungarian leadership came from the playbook of the Republican Party in the United States. In 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made a similar with asylum-seekers entering the US border.

The DeSantis administration boarded around 50 migrants on a flight to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. DeSantis said he had arranged the flights to expose “liberal hypocrisy.” In the past, Texas Governor Greg Abbott and former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey have bussed migrants to states that voted for the Democrats.

With inputs from agencies.