The conservative government in Budapest has condemned the Brussels elite for coordinating yet another political campaign against Hungary.
The European Commission and some EU member states are falsely accusing Hungary of posing a security risk to the Schengen Area by issuing visas to citizens from Russia and Belarus.
In a rebuke of the blatant attacks, Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister’s political director, published official EU data and reminded the accusers that almost 230,000 Russian citizens have residence permits in Germany, 100,000 in Spain, more than 60,000 in France, and nearly 50,000 in Italy. Another 40,000 Russians live in the Czech Republic, and more than 20,000 in Austria and Poland.
In addition, Poland hosts more than a quarter of a million Belarusians, and many EU states, including Italy, Spain, France, and the Czech Republic have thousands of Belarusians living in their countries, many more than Hungary, which hosted fewer than 800 last year.
“Russians and Belarusians with some type of residence permit in Hungary number approximately 11,000, or the equivalent of 1% of the workforce from the EU. As for work permits, in 2023 roughly 180,000 Russians and Belarusians had such permits in the EU, but fewer than 1% of them lived and worked in Hungary,” Orbán emphasised in his post on the social media platform X.
The politician questioned whether such figures really justify the accusations that Hungary poses a security risk to the EU.
The European Commission, along with leftist parties in Europe, have attacked Hungary for the extension of the Hungarian ‘National Card’ system, which simplifies work visa procedures for neighbouring non-EU nationals. They accused Hungary of making it much easier for the Kremlin’s spies to enter the EU’s free movement area by giving them work visas “without security clearance.”
The system had been available for Ukrainian and Serbian guest workers for years, and now includes citizens from Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Russia, and Belarus. The expansion of the programme does not change the fact that Hungary will apply the same security screening for all nationals.
Balázs Orbán said:
It is important to clearly state that the National Card programme does not represent a security risk to the Schengen Area, as Russian and Belarusian citizens must also undergo comprehensive security checks to enter and remain in Hungary.
In a letter to the European Commission on Wednesday, August 21st, Interior Minister Sándor Pintér wrote that Hungary remains committed to protecting its external borders through rigorous screening, as it always has.
The cynical attack against Hungary is naturally a politically motivated move against a conservative government that has defied Brussels’ liberal demands on issues such as migration and LGBT propaganda.
One of the most outrageous attacks by Brussels was a court verdict in June which ruled that Hungary has to pay a lump sum of €200 million, with an additional €1 million a day for failing to comply with EU asylum policies—in other words: for protecting the EU’s external borders.
The Budapest government has made it difficult for illegal migrants to request asylum in Hungary, angering the European Commission and pro-migration Western liberal elites.
At a press conference on Thursday, August 22nd, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff Gergely Gulyás said that if the EU continues to force regulations on Hungary that “does not make it possible to detain migrants at the border,” his country will offer every migrant “transport to Brussels free of charge.”
Hungary doesn’t want to pay this daily fine indefinitely, so we will make it possible for people to enter if they want, and will offer them a one-way ticket to Brussels. If Brussels wants migrants, then it can have them.
Hungary’s threat to transport migrants to Brussels mirrors similar moves from Republican governors in the United States, who since 2022 have bused or flown undocumented immigrants to Democratic strongholds like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago in protest at federal asylum procedures.
