Crowd at EU HQ in Budapest Tell Brussels What They Think of the EUR 200 Million Fine

Protesters have accused the EU of “plundering” Hungary even though the country protects the bloc’s borders

A small crowd of 4-500 people have gathered for a hastily arranged demonstration at the European Union headquarters in central Budapest. Speakers and demonstrators have expressed their views in no uncertain terms what they think about the 200 million Euro fine announced by the European Court of Justice yesterday.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has ordered Hungary to pay €200 million (around HUF 80 billion) for “failing to respect” EU law, including in the area of procedures for granting international protection and returning illegally staying non-EU nationals. Complying with the original decision of the European Commission would have meant the opening of Hungary’s borders to tens of thousands of illegal migrants, which the Hungarian government had flatly refused.

That failure, which consists in deliberately avoiding the application of a common EU policy as a whole, constitutes an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law,”

the decision wrote.

Only a day after the publication of the ECJ decision a demonstration in front of the EU house was called in reaction to the widespread outrage among Hungarian citizens at the above ruling. The main speaker at the event was Zsolt Bayer, a well-known conservative commentator, who called the ECJ decision outrageous. In Mr. Bayer’s view the entire process and the decision was an example of judicial activism, and had called for the government not to pay out a single Euro to the Commission.

Zsolt Bayer has pointed at a recent decision by the Swiss parliament in which they rejected the April ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg that said that the Swiss government had violated the human rights of a group of senior citizens by failing to tackle climate change. The Swiss parliament called this an example of  “judicial activism” and an “interference” in Swiss democracy. Mr. Bayer called on the Hungarian government to approach the ruling in a similar fashion, and denounce it as an interference in Hungarian democracy. The demonstration finished with the singing of the Hungarian national anthem.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán reacted to the ECJ’s ruling, calling it “outrageous and unacceptable. In his view, illegal migrants are more important to the Brussels bureaucrats than their own European citizens. In an interview on Friday morning he vowed that the ECJ’s ruling will “hurt Brussels more than it will hurt Hungary”.

The Prime Minister’s Political Director, Balázs Orbán, described the decision on his social media page as unfair, undemocratic, unconstitutional and irresponsible.

Featured Image: Hungary Today