Hungary’s National Card Programme enabling Russian citizens a Schengen access under fire – UPDATED

“The pro-war majority in the European Parliament is again launching mendacious attacks against the pro-peace Hungarian government”, as the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) is to hold a hearing on Hungary’s National Card programme “based on false accusations” on Wednesday, the Fidesz MEP group said.

The Fidesz MEPs said in a statement on Tuesday that according to pro-war politicians of the EP, the expansion of the National Card scheme to Russian and Belarusian citizens threatened the European Union’s security. When LIBE organised the hearing, they only invited the European Commission, and “they don’t even want to hear about the participation of the Hungarian government”, the statement added.

Kinga Gál, the head of the Fidesz EP delegation, said that National Card applications underwent strict security checks and the EC had previously never criticised these. In the first month of the scheme, only five Russian and Belarusian citizens were granted a National Card, she added.

“It is obvious that the European left was raising accusations without knowing the facts. All of this is a new chapter in the anti-Hungarian political agitation and series of unfounded attacks,” she said.

Fidesz MEP András László said Hungary’s immigration regulations were among the strictest in Europe and added that “hardly 6,000 Russian citizens are working in Hungary, as against nearly 260,000 in Germany.” “Surprisingly, they do not pose security risks, only the ones living in Hungary. These are double standards, pure and simple,” he added.

Wednesday’s debate held by the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Hungary’s National Card scheme was “nothing else than another political attack against Hungary,” Fidesz MEP András László said in Brussels.

László told the press after the LIBE Committee meeting that it had been “a fully unbelievable cynical stage act”, with special regard to the fact that the European Commission’s assessments of the National Card Programme has not revealed any proof that there would be reasons for concern.

The MEPs addressing the debate who asked questions from Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson about the regulations could have also received information from the Hungarian government’s representative, considering the Minister for European Union Affairs Janos Boka was in the EP on Wednesday, and even held a press conference on the subject, he said. It was an expressed request by the Patriots for Europe group to invite representatives of the Hungarian government because dialogue could only have developed if both sides had been present, he added.

The committee rejected the request and the participants addressing Wednesday’s debate were unable to specify any concrete objection to the current regulations, László said. The commissioner even said that no legal problems had been identified, he added.

Johansson said that a very small number of permits had been issued and there was not such a significant scale of influx that the international press and several western European politicians had indicated.

“The politicians addressing the debate, including the representatives of the European People’s Party which had initiated the debate, were not interested in the responses and the facts,” László said. “It was absurd, partly infuriating, but also revealing that the debate was nothing else than another political attack against Hungary,” he said.

In response to a question, he said further developments could be expected because Johansson had expressed “further concerns” about the Hungarian regulations.