The European Court of Justice (ECJ), the EU’s top court, ruled on Thursday, June 22nd that Hungary had defied the bloc’s laws by passing legislation that required asylum seekers inside the country or at its borders to travel to Hungarian embassies in Belgrade or Kyiv to begin the process and have their applications assessed.
The decision comes after the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm and the body responsible for enforcing EU law, launched infringement proceedings against Hungary in 2020, claiming that the Hungarian government’s asylum policy—adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic—did not conform with the EU’s 2013 directive on international protection which lays out common asylum procedures, Magyar Nemzet reports.
Under European Union law, each of the bloc’s 27 members is required to have common procedures for processing asylum claims.
The court, in a press release published on Thursday, wrote: “By making the possibility of making an application for international protection subject to the prior submission of a declaration of intent to an embassy located in a third country, Hungary has failed to fulfill its obligations under EU law.”
EU judges, in their ruling, added that the law put in place by Budapest runs contrary to the European Union’s objective of “ensuring effective, easy, and rapid access to the procedure for granting international protection,” and amounts to “a disproportionate interference with the right of those persons to make an application for international protection upon their arrival at the Hungarian border.”
The ECJ also argued that Hungary’s asylum rule could not be justified on public health grounds meant to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
Responding to the court’s decision, Gergely Gulyás, Hungary’s minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said: “We regret that the Court has made such a decision, but we also regret that the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union have forced us to create this legislation in the first place.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government and the European Commission have long been at odds with one another over the issue of migration. Repeatedly, Orbán has emphasized that who is and who is not allowed into Hungary is a decision that should alone lie with the Hungarian government.
The European Commission must now decide whether it will attempt to sway Hungary to amend the legislation, do away with it entirely, or call on the Luxembourg-based court to level fines.
