EU: Hungarian border measures favouring the V4 countries are illegal and discriminatory

Following the Hungarian government’s latest announcement exempting the V4 countries from the ban on entering the country, EU commissioner Didier Reynders is asking the leadership to revisit their decision.

On 1 September, Justice commissioner Didier Reynders posted on Twitter concerning the Hungarian government’s latest border protection measures. As published in an article by Portfolio,

the measures, banning all foreigners but the V4 residents from entering Hungary, are discriminatory and not in line with the fundamental principles of EU law.

As we wrote earlier, the Hungarian government have recently reintroduced their border protection measures, banning all foreigners – with a few exceptions – from entering the territory of Hungary as of 1 September. Hungarian citizens arriving from abroad are required to self-isolate for 14 days unless they present two negative tests.

1/2 -Today @YlvaJohansson and I are sending a letter to the Hungarian Government recalling the importance of the integrity of the Schengen area and of applying border measures in a non-discriminatory way to all EU citizens and residents. @EU_Commission @EU_Justice @EUHomeAffairs
— Didier Reynders (@dreynders) September 1, 2020

2/2 – Any measures that do not comply with those fundamental principles of EU law should of course be immediately retracted. We will be speaking to our respective Hungarian Ministerial counterparts shortly to request further information.@EU_Commission @EU_Justice @EUHomeAffairs
— Didier Reynders (@dreynders) September 1, 2020

Then on a conference in Bled, Slovenia, three days after the above announcement, the Czech prime minister asked Viktor Orbán “to allow Czech tourists who already have a holiday booked for September to enter Hungary”. Orbán did agree to this,

but since keeping the other two V4 countries (Poland and Slovakia) under the ban “would not have looked good”, the exemption was granted to the residents of these two countries, too.

Visitors coming from these three countries are only asked to present a negative test not older than five days.

As Portfolio writes, the above measures are mostly driven by political arguments rather than aimed at limiting the spread of the pandemic. Reynder is asking the Hungarian prime minister to revisit the actions taken, “recalling the importance of the integrity of the Schengen area and of applying border measures in a non-discriminatory way to all EU citizens and residents”.

Source: portfolio.hu