The European Union on Wednesday began the process of clawing back hundreds of millions of euros in funds meant to go Hungary after its ant-migrant government refused to pay a huge fine for breaking the bloc’s asylum rules.
In June, the EU’s top court ordered Hungary to pay 200 million euros ($223 million) for persistently depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum. The court imposed an additional fine of 1 million euros for every day it failed to comply.
The European Court of Justice described Hungary’s actions as “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slammed its ruling as “outrageous and unacceptable.”
Don’t get me wrong, I actually don’t mind Russians being able to make a better life for themselves, I’m happy for them if they can leave and move and be happy.
It’s just that Russian spies have been moving openly in Budapest, several years ago there was this one guy who defaced a Soviet monument - that IMO has no place standing outside a museum, much less Freedom Square in Budapest. A random Chechen without ID or documentation or a reason for being in the country or Schengen appeared and coerced the guy to apologize publicly.
It’s a disgrace that an undocumented Russian citizen can appear in an EU country, brazenly commit a crime of coercion against an EU citizen while livestreaming it on Youtube, and the authorities of said country just stand by doing nothing and covering for him.
All I’m saying is that I have no illusions of the intentions of Hungary’s government in removing all visa restrictions, specifically and only for Russian and Belarusian citizens.