Hungary has joined the Netherlands in seeking an opt-out from European Union rules on asylum, a minister has said, as the country’s nationalist leader Viktor Orban is expected to make waves at the European Parliament on Tuesday.
Last month, the Dutch government, which is dominated by Geert Wilders’ hard-right party, declared an ‘asylum crisis’ and requested an opt-out of the common asylum policy from Brussels.
It said the move was justified so it can provide ‘housing, health care and education’ to its citizens, but the European Commission responded by saying that it expected no ‘immediate changes’.
The European treaties are binding agreements, and any exemptions can only be made with the agreement of all 27 EU member states.
The EU rules, adopted in May and to come into effect in 2026, aim to share hosting responsibilities across the 27-country bloc and to speed up deportations of those deemed ineligible to stay.
Viktor Orban heads to the European Parliament today for what promises to be a stormy face-to-face with EU lawmakers
Hungary’s border fence is seen on the Hungarian-Serbian border near Asotthalom, Hungary, September 10, 2024
Migrants cross the Slovakia-Hungarian border near Vyskovce Nad Iplom, Slovakia on September 6, 2023
Dutch PVV Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met this week at the annual rally of the Italian far-right League (Lega) party in Pontida, northern Italy
Budapest wrote to the EU’s home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson on Monday requesting an exemption from the rules, Hungary’s minister for European Union affairs, Janos Boka, said on Facebook.
‘The Hungarian government is determined to take firm measures to protect its borders and curb illegal migration which threatens national security,’ Boka said in the letter posted on Facebook late Monday.
He added that ‘restoring stronger national control over migration’ was ‘the only option’ to curb ‘illegal migration’.
Hungary frequently accuses the European Commission of fuelling migration with its policies.
In June, the European Court of Justice fined Hungary for failing to uphold international procedures for asylum seekers. The central European country has so far refused to pay the fine.
Orban heads to the European Parliament today for what promises to be a stormy face-to-face with EU lawmakers – midway through Budapest’s norm-defying presidency of the bloc.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally within the EU, Orban’s government is at loggerheads with its partners on a host of issues – from stalling aid for Ukraine, to enacting a host of laws the bloc sees as democratic backsliding.
Orban set the tone with a combative social media post on Sunday, pointing at hard-right electoral gains from Italy to the Netherlands and Austria – and the rising influence of a Hungarian-led new group in the EU parliament, the Patriots for Europe.
The European Parliament ahead of a plenary session at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, 07 October 2024
‘We should not withdraw from Brussels, but occupy it,’ he wrote. ‘We will take back Brussels from the bureaucrats and return it to the European people!’
The hot-button issue of migration is expected to loom large, with Hungary’s anti-immigration government threatening to bus asylum seekers to Brussels in protest at the bloc’s refugee policies.
It comes as the Dutch government, which was formed in July and includes Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV), declared an ‘asylum crisis’ to pave the way for tougher measures.
These would include a freeze on asylum applications and powers to forcibly deport people who do not have a right to be in the Netherlands.
Under the proposal, refugees would also only be able bring in family members if they have had residence status for two years, have housing and a ‘stable income’.
Currently asylum seekers receive a permit to stay for an indefinite period after five years.
The German government announced it last month that would bring in controls on all its land borders to deal with the ‘continuing burden’ of migration and ‘Islamist terrorism’.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser told the EU that the country had no choice but to enforce proper border controls to cope with unauthorised entries.
The policy marked a U-turn from her stance just last month when she refused to extend strict controls first introduced last year on Germany’s borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
These rules have already seen more than 30,000 people turned back at the borders since mid-October last year.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
