In the dispute with the right-wing nationalist government in Hungary over providing for rejected asylum seekers, the European Commission has upped the pressure. The government in Budapest has not yet smoothed out concerns, the responsible EU authority in Brussels said. Hungary now has one month to comply with EU rules or else face court action.
Today, more people believe their community is a welcoming place for migrants, compared to nine years ago, a Gallup survey shows. However, attitudes in the EU have become more divided.
Austria’s interior minister has said his country will continue to conduct checks on the borders with neighboring Hungary and Slovenia. All three EU countries are members of the Schengen zone whose members don't have controls at their mutual borders. But six Schengen countries, including Austria, have reintroduced border checks for security reasons.
Amnesty International reported at the weekend that Ahmed H., a Syrian man who spent four years in Hungarian prisons after being “unjustly convicted” of terrorism charges, has finally been allowed to return to his wife and family in Cyprus.
New statistics show that Hungary, led by right-wing Premier Viktor Orban, is granting work permits to a growing number of foreigners. Experts say this dichotomy amid the government's anti-immigration propaganda leaves some Hungarians disoriented.
According to UNHCR statistics, more than 40% of almost 3,000 migrants and refugees in Serbia come from Afghanistan. Most of them hope to enter Hungary or Croatia to get into the EU, However, with Hungary's border closed down and the Croatian border being closely monitored, leaving Serbia is proving to be a difficult task.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto slammed the new Italian government's decision to open its ports to private charity ships disembarking migrants rescued at sea. He called the move "deplorable and dangerous" and said the move would create a lasting diplomatic clash between his country and Italy. His Italian counterpart meanwhile called for sanctions for EU member states who refuse to take on migrants under a proposed redistribution scheme.
EU border agency Frontex has denied that it tolerated human rights violations against migrants and refugees in Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary. Several media reports have accused the agency of being at the scene of illegal activities by national border guards.
New reports place the EU border agency Frontex at scenes of brutality against migrants. The border guards of Greece, Bulgaria and Hungary have been found to be especially brutal.
The EU's executive has taken Hungary to court over the bill it passed last year making it a crime to help asylum seekers. The European Commission maintains the "Stop Soros" law is incompatible with EU law.
The UN's special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants criticized Hungary's 2015 decision to declare a state of emergency over the so-called refugee crisis. He added that the measure amounted to little more than scare tactics, and criticized the country's transit zones as being detention facilities.
This is the story of Ahmed H., a Syrian man living in Cyprus since 2006 and married to a Cypriot national. He has two Cypriot-national daughters. Since 2015 he has been detained in Hungary. Now Amnesty International is trying to convince the Cypriot authorities to allow Ahmed to return home.