The European Court of Justice ruled that Hungary's deportation of refugees to Serbia was unlawful. But Viktor Orban's national-conservative government is ignoring the judgement — and continuing to deport refugees.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, along with various other human rights advocacy groups, have been busy collecting evidence documenting Hungary’s continual flouting of EU law with regards to pushbacks. Since the EU Court of Justice declared Hungary’s pushbacks illegal in December 2020, a recorded 4,903 people have been pushed back to Serbia.
The United Nations refugee agency has warned that the idea of asylum is under attack in Europe, with refugee pushbacks at external borders increasingly common.
It follows a European Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of Budapest's treatment of asylum seekers. The EU border agency made the announcement on Wednesday.
The Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog, has accused the EU border agency Frontex of "turning a blind eye towards well-documented systemic human rights violations at Hungary’s Schengen borders." Even after the European Court of Justice had ruled that the extra-judicial pushbacks taking place breached EU law.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary's restrictive asylum-seeker policies violated EU law. The court said the 2015 migration crisis did not justify the country's decision to override EU rules.
The European Commission will take legal action against Hungary once more following the country’s most recent transgression against EU-wide asylum standards. Brussels announced on Friday that it will initiate infringement proceedings shortly over Hungary's "incorrect application of EU asylum legislation."
The European Union looks poised to find broad political agreement on a new EU migration pact. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that the 27 member states might be able to adopt the new legislation before the end of the year.
According to some NGOs in Serbia, the number of migrants gathering on the Serbian border hoping to make it on to Western Europe are increasing.
Hungary's Viktor Orban, Poland's Mateusz Morawiecki and the Czech Republic's Andrej Babis shot down the EU's planned migration reform ahead of scheduled talks. The Visegrad group rejects asylum seeker quotas.
There have been mixed reactions to the new EU pact on migration. The European Commission sought consensus ahead of the pact in order to pass the policy into law even through countries which had been resisting the idea of mandatory quotas. Many human rights organizations though have slammed the proposals.
In 2015, Angela Merkel opened Germany to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war — sparking heated debate about asylum policy within the European Union. In Brussels, DW's Bernd Riegert asks what lessons have been learned.
