Hungary misses deadline for paying €200 million fine imposed by ECJ for non-compliance with EU asylum rules

Hungary has failed to meet the deadline for paying the €200 million fine (roughly 80 billion forints) and the €1 million a day imposed by the European Court of Justice in June on account of the government's failure to comply with EU asylum rules, Euronews and Szabad Európa reported.

The European Commission has thus sent the Hungarian government a second payment notice, with a new deadline of 17 September. If the money is not transferred by that time, the European Commission will launch a procedure to subtract the €200 million from the EU funds Hungary is owed, some of which remain frozen due to rule of law concerns in Hungary anyway.

In addition, the government has until 13 September to state whether it has brought Hungarian legislation, which has been criticised by the court and for which the €1 million a day fine was imposed, into compliance with EU law. If the European Commission does not find the answer satisfactory, it has the right to retroactively submit the invoice going back as far as 13 June, and reduce Hungarian payments by that amount. According to Szabad Európa, the government is eager to avoid this, and there are intensive negotiations going on behind the scenes.

In June, the EU Court of Justice ruled that the Hungarian government's failure to comply, "which amounts to a deliberate circumvention of the application of a common EU policy as a whole, constitutes an unprecedented and very serious breach of EU law" and "shifts responsibility" to other member states.

Commenting on the original decision in June, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that “Hungary was given a one-time 200 million euros fine, plus a 1 million euro a day fine for not allowing illegal migrants in. This ruling is outrageous and unacceptable. We will not give in to the financial blackmail of the Brussels bureaucrats! We will protect our borders and we will protect the Hungarian people!”

The EU is in the process of restructuring its asylum system, for example by introducing a fast-track "border procedure" for applications which are suspected to be unfounded and are likely to be rejected. Until this happens, such applicants are to be kept in a location close to the border (even in a designated transit zone). Key elements of the package were adopted by member states – following the European Parliament's vote – in May this year, and it came into force in June, but most of it will only be implemented as of June 2026.