THE European Court of Justice has told Hungary and Slovakia that they have to accept the 160,000 refugees that Brussels allocated them from crowded centers in Greece and Italy where these unfortunate people are now being housed. It has thrown out a legal challenge by the Hungarian and Slovak governments, which had sought to reject the migrant quota system and indeed questioned why the EU should be offering any refuge.
Among the arguments made by both governments was that an infinite number of people wanting to come to Europe and the EU could not sustain such huge flows. It was also argued that the majority of those seeking asylum were not in fact genuine refugees fleeing for their lives, but economic migrants seeking to escape the poverty of their own countries.
The judges at the European Court of Justice were having none of it. Hungary and Slovakia were legally bound to accept the EU quota and would face economic and political sanctions if they now failed to honor their obligations. The verdict will come as a huge relief to Angela Merkel campaigning for her fourth term as German chancellor. Her visionary and humanitarian welcome for some million migrants shamed other EU member states. Her main opponent, Social Democrat leader Martin Schulz, whose party was in coalition with her Christian Democrats, has sought to criticize his former boss for the migrant policies, which he himself also signed off.
Had the European Court upheld the Hungarian and Slovak challenge, the door would have been opened to German racists, not least the openly Islamophobic Alternatif für Deutschland (AfD). As it is, rent-a-mobs have been booing Merkel and in one seemingly-staged confrontation, an old German pensioner “who had paid her taxes” compared her financial plight to what she complained was the generous state help given newly-arrived migrants.
The Slovak government has said that, while it still holds to its objections to the migrant quotas, it will abide by the court’s ruling. Less certain is the response from Budapest where Premier Viktor Orban’s chauvinistic and authoritarian government has been most outspoken about the EU’s refugee welcome. His Foreign Minister Peter Szijjártó described the court’s judgment as “outrageous and irresponsible”. Budapest may yet find itself in a bitter showdown with Brussels, as the EU applies various sanctions.
The danger is that the longer the EU’s wise and sensible migrant policies are resisted by one government, the greater the encouragement to other EU leaders, not least the Poles. Then there is the undercurrent of racist hatred that boils like molten magma. This threatens to break through to the surface in the hate-filled mouths of neo-fascist politicians such as Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, Geert Wilders Party for Freedom in Holland, the Swedish Democrats and Germany’s AfD.
It remains to be seen if the EU has the strength to see through its migrant quota scheme, given all the other challenges that currently beset the Union not least the increasingly bitter argument over the terms of the British departure. A renewed mandate for Angela Merkel on Sept. 24 would pave the way for a fresh and powerful partnership with France’s new president Emmanuel Macron. This will hopefully steady the EU’s determination to do the right thing by the migrants who have arrived seeking its protection.
