Dismantling the reception of asylum seekers: Hungary’s illiberal asylum policies and EU responses

ABSTRACT

Since 2015, the Hungarian government successfully securitised migration and profoundly changed the country’s asylum system. Through qualitative research and expert interviews, this article demonstrates how reception infrastructure was extra-territorialised, while reception standards were dissolved. This was accompanied by the criminalising of civil society and asylum seeker support groups. The ramifications of this externalisation impact asylum seekers’ rights to a dignified reception in EU member states, and contravene EU citizens’ freedoms. The article discusses these developments within European securitisation European human rights discourses, and Hungary’s illiberal governance. It also identifies weaknesses of common European reception standards in light of illiberal policymaking.

KEYWORDS:

• Asylum
• reception conditions
• Hungary
• European Union
• securitisation
• externalisation

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their critical and thoughtful remarks. I also thank my supervisor, Sieglinde Rosenberger, and colleagues Miriam Haselbacher, Katrin Kremmel, Leila Hadj-Abdou and Zita Barcza-Szabó for their very helpful comments and fruitful discussions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Migration and Home Affairs: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/pages/glossary/hotspot-approach_en.

2 The Return Directive 2008/115/EU lays down common standards and procedures in member states for returning illegally staying third-country nationals.

3 Government Resolution 1724/2015. (X. 7.).

4 Law No. CXL concerning the “state of crisis dueto mass migration” passed 7 September 2015, Magyar Közlöny 124/2015 19196.

5 Act C of 2012 Criminal Code and Act XIX of 1998 Act on criminal procedure.

6 Law XXX from 2007, amended on 28 March 2017.

7 In certain cases where individuals had serious health issues, lawyers could demand a transfer to Balassagyarmat (Aida, 2018b, 70).

8 Law No. CVI changing Law No. LXXX of 2007 concerning asylum, passed 30 May 2015, Magyar Közlöny 2015/100 17389.

9 Section 51(2)(f) and Section 51(12) of the Asylum Act.

10 A safe third country is a country where people are treated in accordance with certain rules such as: Life and liberty should not be threatened, and the person should have the possibility to request asylum according to the international conventions. For more information, see for example: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/pages/glossary/safe-third-country_en. First country of asylum is a country where a person has been recognised as a refugee or sufficient protection including non-refoulement. For more information, see here: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/pages/glossary/first-country-asylum_en.

11 In 2018, out of 671 asylum applications, 68 people were granted international protection and 281 subsidiary protection. For more numbers, see the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO), https://www.ksh.hu/docs/eng/xstadat/xstadat_annual/i_wnvn003.html.

12 Section 51(2)(f) and Section 51(12) of the Asylum Act.

13 In 2016, a Hungarian journalist brought the case to the European Court of Human Rights, who decided that the denial of access was a violation of the freedom of expression. See the case of Szurovecz v. Hungary. https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-196418%22]}.

14 Amendments to Act C of 2012 on the Penal Code, Section 353/A (May 2018), see: https://helsinki.hu/wp-content/uploads/T333-ENG.pdf.

15 In case C-924/19, the CJEU decided in 2020 that transit zones were unlawful detention, violating Article 2(h), Article 8, Article 9 and Article 11 of the RCD.

16 Infringement Procedure INFR (2015)2201. Which was referred to the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) in 2018. In 2019, it opened another infringement procedure for the non-provision of food and criminalisation of civil society INFR (2019)2193 (see: EC 2018, 2021).

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Helena Segarra

Helena Segarra holds a BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies from University of Vienna and INALCO (Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales) in Paris and a MA in Sociology from EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) in Paris. In 2017, she obtained the Unidocs Fellowship at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Vienna for her dissertation project with the working title: Refugee reception as a site of bordering. Governing the inclusion and exclusion of refugees in European member states. Helena is involved in the IN:EX research group at the University of Vienna and the Erasmus+ Projects BordEUr and HELCI. Recent Publications: Haselbacher, M./Segarra, H. (2021): Politics of adjustment: rural mayors and the accommodation of refugees. In: Territory, Politics and Governance, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21622671.2021.1934101?scroll=top&needAccess=true, Segarra, Helena (2020): The Reception of Asylum Seekers in Europe: Exclusion through Accommodation practices. In: Jesse, M (Ed.), European Societies, Migration, and the Law: The “Others” amongst “Us”. Cambridge University Press, pp. 213–229.