Commissioners for Justice and Home Affairs Didier Reynders and Ylva Johansson wrote to the Hungarian government on 1 September to remind it that no discrimination of European citizens can take place when it comes to returning to the territory of a Member State. There are “clear rules for the free movement of European citizens and each Member State must follow them”, said spokesman Christian Wigand.
Both officials replied to the notification sent by Budapest on 31 August concerning the re-establishment of controls at Hungary’s land and air borders for a period of 30 days (see EUROPE 12549/6). In order to protect the country from the resurgence of Covid-19, the government of Viktor Orbán intends to ban the entry of all foreign nationals on Hungarian soil, with the exception of Hungarian citizens and residents and citizens and residents of the Visegrád countries (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic), who will be allowed to enter, but will have to undergo a quarantine.
The Commission indicated to Budapest that this discrimination of nationality was not permitted under European law. “Any measure that is not in line with the fundamental principles of the law must be withdrawn immediately”, Didier Reynders wrote on his Twitter account, adding that the Commission had asked Budapest for more information.
The national ambassadors of the Member States within the Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper) will have a discussion on 2 September on the coordination of their measures against Covid-19, in order not to jeopardise “the integrity of Schengen” and to “avoid a fragmented approach as we saw at the beginning of this year”, as stated in a document of the German Presidency of the Council of the EU as seen by EUROPE. The discussion will feed into a draft EU Council recommendation announced by the Commission on 1 September (see related article). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)