The Hungarian government has announced that it is ready to give one-way tickets to all migrants who want to travel to Brussels: “If Brussels wants migrants, it can have them,” Politico quotes the government’s statement at Thursday’s cabinet meeting.
Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas outlined the idea in response to a 200 million euro fine imposed on Hungary in June after the European Court of Justice ruled that Budapest was ignoring EU asylum laws and an earlier ruling, the site recalled.
“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,” said Gulyas at the government’s weekly briefing Thursday.
“If Brussels wants migrants, it can have them.”
Gulyás added that asylum-seekers “can then negotiate there with the European Commission about their own care.”
According to the Republican Playbook
This proposal from the Hungarian government comes from the playbook of the US Republican Party, which is a regular source of inspiration for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, deported roughly fifty asylum seekers to liberal Massachusetts’s Martha’s Vineyard in 2022 after taking a similar action with them at the US border.
At the time, DeSantis claimed he was dismantling “liberal hypocrisy.”
Other Republican leaders who have sent refugees to Democratic-voting U.S. cities include former Arizona Governor Doug Ducey and Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Refugees from Ukraine are Under the Threat of Eviction
In the meantime one 120 Transcarpathian refugees staying in a local guesthouse in the Hungarian village of Kocs had to leave the place. They left voluntarily, without any force of use but only to the bus stop in front of the inn, where they took shelter.
According to a government decree issued in June, the Hungarian government will only provide shelter and food to people in areas directly affected by the fighting. NGOs warned that most of those fleeing Transcarpathia would have nowhere to go, but the law went into effect on August 21.
The change means that people living in areas inside Ukraine not affected by the fighting will not be provided with shelter and food by the Hungarian government. A list of these areas is included in the legislation, and those from elsewhere can only stay in accommodation funded by the Hungarian state on exceptional, individual basis.
According to the UNHCR, by the end of last month just over 46 000 Ukrainian refugees had registered in Hungary for temporary protection, a status granted under European legislation that came into force shortly after the Russian aggression and gives them the right to reside in an EU member state.
The European Commission said today it was examining whether a Hungarian law withdrawing state-funded shelter from Ukrainian refugees from regions not directly impacted by the war is in line with EU asylum rules, while Budapest said it was targeting only those who are able but unwilling to work.
Tough Stance on Illegal Migration
Hungary, which has been ruled for years by Orban’s right-wing Fidesz party, has long taken a tough stance on asylum seekers entering the country.
In 2020, a Luxembourg court ruled that Budapest violated EU migration rules by unlawfully detaining asylum seekers and deporting them before appeals. Hungary was fined €200 million and ordered to pay €1 million daily.