Hungary has upped the ante in the migration debate with Brussels by presenting the buses it can use to send migrants to the EU capital, with a Hungarian politician repeating the threat on Monday after Belgium said it would reject the buses.
If Brussels “wants us to let them in, we will let them in—put them on the bus, and drop them off in front of [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen’s office,” said Tamás Menczer, the spokesman for the Hungarian ruling party Fidesz in a video posted on his Facebook account on Monday, Sept. 9.
The original threat that made international headlines was made by Hungary’s interior minister, Bence Rétvari, during a press conference in front of a fleet of buses last week.
“If the European Union, Brussels, wants to force Hungary to let in the illegal migrants, those we have stopped so far a million times at Hungary’s southern border, then Hungary, after the implementation of the European procedure, will offer these illegal migrants a voluntary, free of charge, one-way ticket to Brussels. If Brussels wants illegal migrants, Brussels can get them,” he said.
However, there are many challenges facing Hungary if it pursues such a course. For one, Belgium is obviously coming out against it. Despite many EU countries’ claiming migration is a good thing, and more diversity is always better, most nations, even those purporting to support open borders ideology, are looking for ways to unload their migrant populations.
Hadja Lahbib, Belgium’s foreign affairs minister, said the announcement “is a provocation that contradicts European obligations,” adding that “migration policy is a common challenge that must be tackled in an orderly fashion and with solidarity by all member states.”
Meanwhile, Nicole de Moor, the state secretary for asylum and migration, said that such transfers would not occur, saying Belgium will not grant access to “migration flows that are instrumentalized in this way.”
Philippe Close, the mayor of Brussels, demanded in an X post that Prime Minister Alexander De Croo block the buses.
“The Hungarian government holding the rotating EU Presidency is not afraid of provocation. I call on Alexander De Croo to block these buses at the Belgian border. How long will we tolerate provocations from a country we support?” he wrote.
If Hungary goes ahead with the transfer of migrants, it will certainly set up a legal showdown. Hungarian officials believe that EU law may be on their side.
“According to the position of Brussels, if illegal migrants can move freely on the territory of Hungary, then they can also move freely on the territory of the European Union. So there is no obstacle stopping them from taking these buses and traveling to Brussels from Budapest. More precisely from Röszke, which is on the Hungarian (southern) border, and to arrive in front of the European Commission headquarters. If Brussels wants this, of course, transport of illegal migrants to Brussels is also doable. For us, protecting our southern border is the priority,” said Rétvári on Friday.
Rétvári said Hungary was considering a counterclaim to recover the costs of border protection. He reiterated that Hungary’s policy is not only protecting its own borders, but also Europe’s external borders, as Hungarian border protection measures have prevented the entry of around 1 million illegal migrants since 2015.
In mid-June, the European Court of Justice ordered Hungary to pay €200 million plus a €1 million daily fine if it does not comply with the court’s ruling in December 2020 that it must respect EU law.
