EU infringement procedure against Hungary on refugee relocation
June 15th, 2017As the European Commission initiates a new procedure against Central European member states for not participating in the EU refugee relocation scheme, a conservative pundit thinks that the EU’s strategy will boost PM Orbán’s popularity.
On Tuesday, the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for not complying with a decision taken by a majority of EU interior ministers in September 2015 on the redistribution of asylum seekers.
In Heti Válasz, András Zsuppán thinks that the infringement procedure plays into the hands of the Orbán government. The conservative columnist notes that the refugee redistribution system has not been effective, as only 20,000 of the initially agreed 120,000 asylum seekers have been relocated so far. Thus the quota system is unlikely to resolve the migration crisis in Europe, Zsuppán remarks. As for the infringement procedure, Zsuppán suspects that it helps the Orbán government to claim that it is waging a war with Brussels in defence of Hungary’s sovereignty. All this, Zsuppán believes, further increases Mr Orbán’s chances of winning the 2018 Parliamentary election.