Hungary’s Asylum Policy: A Regional Dilemma With Global Implications
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán held an online discussion with his European partners ahead of the EU summit to discuss migration. (Photo: Hungary Today)
On June 13, 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) fined Hungary 200 million euros and imposed a daily penalty of one million Euros for failing to follow the EU’s asylum laws and for illegally deporting migrants. The ECJ stated that Hungary had committed an "unprecedented and exceptionally serious breach of EU law" by restricting refugees’ right to seek asylum.
Hungary missed the first deadline to pay the fine, which expired on August 30, 2024. Following this, the European Commission (EC) sent a second payment request on September 2, granting Hungary an additional fifteen days to comply. Since the second payment request was also ignored, the EC triggered a special measure called “off-setting procedure” to deduct the €200 million fine from Hungary's allocated share of the EU budget.
The ongoing tensions between Hungary and the EU over the asylum issue reveal a global struggle to reconcile humanitarian obligations with political priorities. In the United States, as the Trump administration took office, the US southern border with Mexico was closed to asylum seekers. As migration continues to shape the 21st century, it demands solutions that go beyond temporary fixes or insular approaches. Addressing this challenge requires not only international cooperation but also a shift in perspective—one that sees migration not as a crisis to be contained, but as a reality to be managed with compassion, equity, and foresight.
A Decade Of Controversy
While these tensions have become more pronounced in recent months, they are part of a longer story. For nearly a decade, Hungary's stringent asylum policies have faced significant criticism from human rights organizations and the EU for breaching international and EU legal obligations.
In 2015, the Hungarian government headed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán started ramping up anti-migration rhetoric. Due to the rise of ISIS, instability in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and the civil war in Syria, 1.3 million people fled their homes to Europe. On August 31, 2015, Hungarian authorities closed Budapest’s main station to refugees and migrants. This shift was accompanied by increased forced returns at the borders and a decline in legal protections, as highlighted by the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights group based in Budapest.
Based on EUROSTAT statistics on first-time asylum applicants and total positive decisions, Hungary's performance in handling asylum applications has been notably poor compared to other EU countries. In 2023, Hungary recorded the lowest positive decision ratio among all EU-27 countries, with just 1.44 percent of asylum claims being approved. This starkly contrasts with the much higher approval rates in other nations like Germany (54.4 percent) and Estonia (94.55 percent).
Toward the end of 2015, Hungary constructed a double-layered border barrier spanning 157 kilometers along its southern boundary with Serbia and Croatia, at a cost of approximately €1.7 billion.
The following year, the Hungarian government designated sections of its territory as transit zones. According to Milica Švabić of the Serbian NGO Klikaktiv, this created a legal fiction that individuals within these zones had not technically entered Hungarian soil.
A Legal and Humanitarian Dilemma
The impact of these measures is evident in the sharp decline in asylum applications from 2015 onwards:
Trend in asylum positive decisions in Hungary from 2014 to 2023. (Source: Eurostat)
By March 28, 2017, Hungarian law mandated that asylum applications could only be lodged from these transit zones along the Serbian-Hungarian border. However, this system was abolished in May 2020 and replaced by a new procedure requiring asylum seekers to apply at Hungarian embassies abroad, effectively eliminating the possibility of requesting asylum directly within Hungary.
Railway wagon with barbed wire at Hungary-Serbia border barrier. (Photo: Bőr Benedek, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
The scatterplot below highlights Hungary's role as a 'negative outlier' in the European asylum system, demonstrating an exceptionally low positive decision ratio for asylum applications across multiple years. This contrasts sharply with countries like Germany, which emerge as 'positive outliers' with consistently high ratios of accepted asylum requests relative to total applications.
Click on the image to view the full interactive version.
This trend underscores Hungary's lack of compliance and collaboration within the Dublin Regulation framework, which was designed to assign responsibility to countries for asylum applications. By failing to uphold its obligations, Hungary not only undermines the system's integrity but also increases pressure on neighboring countries like Germany, which already handle a disproportionately high number of applications. The data thus highlight something more deeply rooted: the unfair distribution of responsibility among EU member states.
Is this Enough?
All of this raises a broader question: How should the EU address the growing divide between member states like Hungary and those, like Germany, that are more open to accepting refugees?
The €200 million fine and daily penalties against Hungary aim to push it into compliance, but Hungary has shown little willingness to change. This raises doubts about the effectiveness of such financial penalties in achieving long-term policy shifts.
Moreover, the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which took effect in 2024, introduces a new ‘solidarity’ mechanism that gives EU member states the option of making financial contributions instead of allowing relocations in their territory. It fails to address the dysfunctionality of the Dublin Regulation, which places the burden of asylum claims on countries at the border with the non-Schengen area.
Possible Actions for the EU
Political pressure: The EU could link Hungary’s compliance with its access to EU funding, though this would be complicated by Hungary's alliances with other populist governments.
Incentives for cooperation: Financial support for border management or refugee integration could encourage Hungary to comply with EU asylum standards.
Institutional reforms: The EU may need deeper reforms to its asylum system, as the Dublin Regulation remains problematic. While the new Pact introduces faster procedures, it doesn’t fully address the unfair distribution of responsibility for asylum seekers.
The EU's current approach, including fines and the new Pact, may not resolve the underlying issues in the asylum system. For meaningful change, the EU must consider legal, political, and structural reforms to promote fairness, solidarity, and respect for refugees’ rights.
