Infringement procedure against Hungary on migration laws
December 15th, 2015A pro-government columnist believes that if the European Union is serious about refugee rights, it should launch an infringement procedure against Germany rather than singling out Hungary. He is particularly outraged by what he describes as European Parliament Speaker Martin Schulz’s ‘diatribe against nation states.’
The European Commission objects to Hungary’s recent immigration legislation, arguing that applicants may be deported from Hungary while their case is under appeal, and because their rights to interpretation and translation are not guaranteed. Justice Minister László Trócsányi described those objections as technical. According to newspaper reports, the government is ready to amend the rules if necessary and intends to solve the problem through negotiations with the European Commission rather than taking it to the European Court of Justice.
In Magyar Idők, Dávid Megyeri finds the attitude of the leaders of the European Union contradictory. On the one hand they behave as if they wanted Europe to be flooded by “half of the Middle East”. On the other hand, they want to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees from Germany. European Parliament Speaker Martin Schulz has castigated member countries who refuse to accept compulsory relocation quotas and said “the retreat of many governments into nation-based thinking” is a fatal threat to the Union. In reality, Megyeri objects, the German drive to relocate refugees is also “nation-based thinking” which means that the “anti-European troika” consisting of Messrs Juncker, Schulz and Merkel do not mind nation-based thinking as long as that nation is German. Rather than singling out Hungary, he believes, they should launch an infringement procedure against Germany which has still only processed a fraction of the million asylum requests filed over the past year.