Hungary has come under attack again by the European Commission, which on Wednesday, May 7th, announced it would be taking the Central European country to court for breaching rules on combating people-trafficking.
Hungary has for years been punished by Brussels for pursuing strict anti-immigration policies, closing its borders to illegal migrants, and forcing asylum seekers to apply for protection in Hungary’s embassy in neighbouring Serbia.
Last year, the European Court of Justice ordered Hungary to pay a lump sum of €200 million, with an additional €1 million a day for failing to comply with EU asylum policies. Meanwhile, other EU member states, such as Poland, which has a Europhile government, have been let off for enacting similar anti-immigration laws to Hungary’s.
In the latest development, the European Commission is heading to the top EU court because of the conservative government’s decision in 2023 to release and expel several thousand jailed migrant traffickers on the grounds that holding them in Hungarian prisons was a burden to the taxpayer.
Hungary has stated that human traffickers can only operate because of European laws encouraging migration.
Brussels accuses Budapest of a failure to meet its obligations to “impose effective, proportionate, and dissuasive sanctions” for migrant smuggling.
