ECJ fines Hungary with €200 million over 'extremely serious' breach of EU asylum law

Hungary has been accused of systematically ignoring EU asylum rules.

Transcript

00:00The European Union's top court has ordered Hungary to pay a fine of 200 million euros

00:06over an extremely serious breach of EU asylum law.

00:11The European Court of Justice ECJ on Thursday ruled that Hungary had persistently been breaking

00:16the bloc's asylum law despite a previous ruling.

00:20Budapest will have to pay an additional 1 million euros for every day going forward

00:25if it fails to comply.

00:27Top EU judges in 2020 had found Hungarian asylum rules limiting access to international

00:33protection and illegally detaining migrants.

00:36In response to that ruling, the Hungarian government chose the opposite solution, according

00:41to this lawyer.

00:42Unfortunately, the Hungarian government has decided to completely ignore it, what's more,

00:48actively working against it, establishing its domestic rules, which were completely

00:54against European Union legislation and to add insult to injury.

00:59It has been constantly communicating about intentionally doing this.

01:04I think this is one of the reasons which gives its special profile to this case.

01:09The European Commission, with which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been engaged

01:14in a years-long showdown, said it would reach out to Budapest to inquire about how the country

01:20intends to comply with the EU law.

01:23The penalty can even be withheld from the country's EU funds.

01:28And if the payment is still not made, then the Commission resorts to what we call the

01:32offsetting procedure, which in practice means that we deduct the amount concerned from an

01:38upcoming transfer towards the budget of the, towards the country concerned.

01:45Reacting to Thursday's ruling, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the court's

01:50decision as outrageous and unacceptable.

01:54Writing on Twitter, he said, it seemed illegal migrants were more important to bureaucrats

01:59in Brussels than European citizens.

02:02Orban's anti-immigrant government is taking a hard line on people entering the country

02:06since well over one million people entered Europe in 2015, most of them fleeing conflict

02:12in Syria.

02:14The ECJ described Hungary's level of violation of the law as unprecedented in European jurisprudence

02:20.