The European Commission says it will take the money out of European funds meant for Budapest after the deadline for the payment of a migration-related fine expired.
Due to the court decision on its migration policies, it was determined Hungary had to pay a fine of €200 million and a penalty payment of €1 million per day for non-compliance.
Budapest refused, claiming this would force them to have open border policies.
On September 17, the deadline to adhere to the court decision and pay this fine expired.
A spokesperson announced on September 18 that the European Commission will commence the “offsetting procedure.”
Said procedure is a mechanism the European Commission can use when an EU member state fails to pay fines or financial penalties imposed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for non-compliance with EU law.
It entails the deduction of money from EU funds, in this case, €200 million plus an additional payment of €93 million, the result of the daily penalty of €1 million, to which Hungary did not react either.
In theory, the Commission can take money from any payment, but it still has to look into how it will move forward on a practical level, a spokesperson said.
Hungary and the European Commission have been colliding over migration for a long time.
In mid-June, the CJEU ordered Hungary to pay €200 million plus a penalty of €1 million per day if it did not comply with the court’s ruling of December 2020 that the country must abide by “European Union law”.
The CJEU stated that Hungary had failed to follow EU legislation by not granting protection to asylum seekers or implementing measures on the return of people who stayed illegally.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán did not immediately publicly react on the news, as the country is struggling with the passage of cyclone Boris.
Earlier he labelled the decision as “outrageous and unacceptable”.
Reacting to the court decision, the Hungarian Government said it plans to confront the capital and send buses filled with migrants to Brussels.
“If Brussels wants illegal migrants, they can have them”, Parliamentary Secretary of State of the Human Resources Ministry Bence Retvari said on September 6.
“If the European Union forces Hungary to let in illegal immigrants, it will offer migrants to be transported to Brussels free of charge,” Rétvári said at a press conference.
He reiterated that Hungary was protecting not only its own borders but also Europe’s external ones with its policies. He claimed that, since 2015, the Hungarian southern border fence and the country’s border guards have prevented around 1 million people from entering the EU.
“Yet the Court of Justice of the European Union [CJEU] has imposed a ‘disproportionate, unjust’ and ‘gigantic’ fine on Hungary, with which they want to force the country to let illegal immigrants in en masse and to give up its migration policy so far,” Rétvári said.
Hungary has raised the stakes in its spat over migration with Brussels, showing off the buses it said it could use to send migrants to the capital of the European Union. https://t.co/bw5klQYZR3
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) September 6, 2024
