Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is calling on the EU to pay around two billion euros. According to Orban, the country has invested this sum to protect the EU’s external borders and the Schengen area.
Hungary’s right-wing populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban wants to blame the European Union for what he sees as successful defense against refugees This is stated in a decree signed by Orban that was published in the Hungarian Official Gazette.
It states that Hungary has been responsible for protecting the EU’s external and Schengen borders since 2015. around two billion euros issued. The EU owes Hungary this money. Therefore, the “responsible decision-makers” were instructed to examine whether this sum could be offset against the penalty payment to which the European Court of Justice (ECJ) condemned Hungary in June of this year for its asylum policy. How Hungary intends to implement this plan in concrete terms remains unclear at first.
In the summer of 2015, Hungary had to deal with the refugee crisis Barbed wire fences on its borders with Serbia and Croatia. As a result, only a few irregular migrants came into the country via the Balkan route.
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On June 13, the European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary must pay 200 million euros plus a daily penalty of one million euros for each day of delay because the country had failed to implement the highest court rulings on the asylum system. Hungary had violated EU treaties because it deliberately avoided applying a common Union policy. This represented a completely new and exceptionally serious violation of EU law, Luxembourg said at the time.
The ECJ had already issued its first ruling on Hungarian refugee policy in 2020. Among other things, it concerned procedures in the now closed transit camps on the border with Serbia. The court later overturned the Hungarian regulation according to which asylum seekers must first undergo a preliminary procedure in Hungarian embassies before they may be allowed to enter Hungary to apply for asylum there. This practice still applies in Hungary.
