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Support for EU’s asylum plan crumbling after demands to set own rules

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Support for the EU’s plan to combat illegal migration is crumbling amid a deepening political crisis over the Schengen travel area.

Dutch migration minister Marjolein Faber wrote to the European Commission to say the Netherlands wants to opt out of regulations for accepting refugees.

And the EU is facing a desperate battle to collect fines from Hungary after the country refused to allow migrants to claim asylum.

The splits will further embarrass Brussels as it tries to restore control of its external borders and prevent mass migration across the continent.

Ms Faber wrote: “I have just informed the EU Commission that I want a migration opt-out within Europe for the Netherlands. We need to be in charge of our own asylum policy again.”

The Netherlands is also planning a national asylum crisis law with a freeze on asylum applications, reducing numbers in reception centres and powers to forcibly deport people without the right to reside.

Dutch border controls will be tightened after Germany’s introduction of frontier checks this week.

On Wednesday, the European Union began the process of clawing back hundreds of millions of euros in funds meant to go Hungary after its government refused to pay a huge fine for breaking the bloc’s asylum rules.

In June, the EU’s top court ordered Hungary to pay €200million (£168 million) for persistently depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum. The court imposed an additional fine of €1million for every day it failed to comply.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) described Hungary’s actions as “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law”.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described the ruling as “outrageous and unacceptable”.

The EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, said that given Hungary’s failure to pay or provide information about its intentions, Brussels is “moving to what we call the off-setting procedure” by taking the money from common funds that would otherwise go to Budapest.

“So, what we are going to do now is to deduct the €200million from upcoming payments from the EU budget towards Hungary,” said commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari.

He said it would take time to identify which parts of Hungary’s funding could be deducted.

Mr Ujvari said the commission has also sent a first payment request on the daily fines amounting to €93million (£1.18million) so far.

“Counting from receipt, the Hungarian authorities will have 45 days to make that payment,” he said.

Hungary’s staunchly nationalist government has taken a hard line on people entering the country since well over one million people arrived in Europe in 2015.

The case against it concerned changes Hungary made to its asylum system in the wake of that crisis, when some 400,000 people passed through Hungary on their way to western Europe.

The government in Budapest ordered fences with razor wire to be erected on its southern borders with Serbia and Croatia, and transit zones for holding asylum seekers to be set up on its border with Serbia.

Those transit zones have since closed.

In 2020, the ECJ found that Hungary had restricted access to international protection, unlawfully detained asylum applicants and failed to observe their right to stay while their applications were processed.

But the commission, which is responsible for monitoring the 27 EU member states’ compliance with their shared laws, took the view that Budapest had still not complied and requested that the ECJ impose a fine.

Germany has been accused of signalling the “Schengen’s death knell” by closing its borders to illegal migrants and asylum seekers, a Reform UK MP has warned.

Berlin said it will introduce controls for six months but stressed the EU must ensure “strong protection” of its “external borders”.

The move has prompted fury from neighbouring countries, with Austria and Poland slamming the “unacceptable” move and signalling they will not accept illegal migrants being returned.

The Schengen zone allows people to cross borders without passport checks.



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