Travelling to the UK from Hungary becomes significantly harder in 2025
Travelling to the UK will become more difficult, as ETA will be extended to European countries, including Hungary. From 2025, everyone will need permission to travel to the UK, except British and Irish citizens and EU citizens with a settled status in the UK.
UK extends ETA to EU countries
Turizmus online writes that the UK Home Office has announced that from 5 March 2025, non-visa travellers from Europe, including EU countries, will require an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to enter the UK, with the new rule fully enforced from 2 April. The ETA, costing GBP 10 (HUF 4,687), will be valid for two years or until the passport expires, allowing unlimited visits of up to six months each. Digitally linked to travellers’ passports, the ETA aims to enhance security screening.
Initially trialled with Qatar, the system has since expanded to include citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Jordan. Now, the system will be further expanded to all EU countries, including Hungary, making travelling to the UK one step harder. The Home Office writes:
Everyone wishing to travel to the UK – except British and Irish citizens – will need permission to travel in advance of coming here. This can be either through an ETA or an eVisa.
Travelling to the UK to become more difficult
The UK Home Office has confirmed that from January 2025, the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system will be extended to non-European countries whose citizens do not require visas, followed by European nations from April 2025. This move will mandate ETA for all visa-exempt travellers. Following Brexit, the UK left the EU single market and customs union, prioritising control over immigration. The current Labour government, continuing the plans of its Conservative predecessor, is implementing ETA for tourism purposes. However, EU citizens with settled status in the UK are exempt from this requirement. The Home Office explains:
Today we are confirming that from 27 November 2024, eligible non-Europeans can apply for an ETA and will need an ETA to travel from 8 January 2025. ETAs will then extend to eligible Europeans from 5 March 2025, who will need an ETA to travel from 2 April 2025.
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Again, turning the screw on the folks doing things by the book, while just waving in those who come illegally AND bestowing all manner of freebies on them, including food shelter, healthcare, access to education, welfare allowance, etc. Insult to injury: The places they house such illegal aliens in are of a far superior quality to what many native Brits can afford.
Why are they doing this?
Steiner, as usual you’re full of it. The UK, if it hasn’t escaped your attention, is a sovereign state and seeks to increase border security, like most others. The US has had an ESTA system for over a decade now, the EU is introducing an identical mechanism for Schengen countries coming on stream next year. The UK is following suit, an entirely reasonable and understandable step that seeks to screen travellers prior to embarkation in order to weed out undesirables and those that may present a threat to national security. It’ll also serve to weed out those seeking to travel to the UK who are likely to be doing so in order to claim asylum on arrival.
Unless a Hungarian citizen has a criminal record that imposed a custodial sentence, is on an Interpol watch list or otherwise sanctioned, everyone else will receive travel authorisation in a matter of minutes and will find that it is a mere formality. This was the experience I had when I travelled to the US some years ago, I didn’t make a song and dance about having to apply for an ESTA before travel.
As regarding your assertion that asylum seekers in the UK have a better standard of living than British citizens, let me assure you (and I speak with some measure of personal experience here), that is emphatically not the case. Housing mainly consists of low grade motel rooms or even floating former prison ships, they receive in the region of £38 a week to cover basic food and hygiene products and are not permitted to work while their application is ongoing. That’s not to say that everyone making an asylum claim has a well founded reason to do so and many are arriving from safe countries, but to suggest that anyone is undertaking a perilous journey across the world’s busiest shipping lane in a rubber dinghy purely for the handouts is nonsense, as there are virtually no handouts. No, the prize is having an asylum claim accepted and being able to live like a normal person thereafter, this is what they’re hoping for. Other countries may be more generous, YMMV.
9 years ago anyone who disagrees with UK were blocked from entering especially on imamagration policy – some for several days – they have been tracking people for years- all they need to do is confirm your id. A beautiful young coupl from Vienna was blocked who I had followed for years.
He was to speak at the famous free speech corner I called speakers Corner- that was his crime. This were bad then , now it hundred times worse. That was reason for Brexit. They had to have another vote because it would not except the results of the first. Elon Musk said they are headed to a civil war. Like the EU, they are doing everything to silence him. And X along with Starlink. The UK should be avoided. The UK has more sharia counts than many Islamic countries. Brussels already has minority Belgian population.
I can assure you the UK only blocks entry to people deemed a genuine risk to national security or to those that have received custodial sentences abroad. The ‘beautiful’ (I’m not sure why their aesthetic appeal has any relevance here) Viennese couple you refer to may well have been known to Austrian authorities and their name on a watch list which is why they were denied entry to the UK. An upside of Brexit is that the UK is no longer obliged to admit EU nationals that are otherwise deemed to pose a threat in the exclusive opinion of the UK authorities. Speaker’s Corner is not a forum for rabble rousing and hate speech. As for this nonsense about Shariah courts in the UK, any that may exist (I have no knowledge of where one is, they have no public profile) have no legal force as far as UK law is concerned.