The European Court scheduled the hearing of the so-called quota lawsuit which was instituted by the European Commission against Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for 15 May.
As part of the preparations for the hearing, the court sent questions to the parties which the Ministry of Justice has answered on behalf of the Hungarian government today. In our reply we made it clear that the Hungarian government continues to stand against the mandatory migrant quotas and Hungary rejects both one-time quotas and a permanent mechanism. Not a single country can be obliged to take in migrants against its will.
Last January the European Commission instituted a lawsuit against Hungary due to the non-execution of the quota judgement. This lawsuit is about the one-time mandatory quotas pushed through the Brussels decision-making mechanism in 2015 with trickery which would oblige Hungary to resettle 1,294 migrants into the country. Due to this unlawful decision Hungary turned to the European Court earlier, and we are now ready to face another lawsuit which the European Commission instituted because we are not prepared to implement the quota judgement and to start resettlement. Hungary equally rejects one-time quotas and permanent mandatory quotas; the Hungarian people have decided on this several times.
We are convinced that the one-time quotas are only the beginning, and the actual goal of the Brussels pro-immigration leadership is to introduce permanent, automatic, mandatory quotas without an upper limit, a resettlement mechanism; several statements made in Brussels indicate this. We are also certain that if pro-immigration forces obtain a majority in the May European parliamentary elections and in the leadership of EU institutions, they will again place the issue of the mandatory distribution of migrants on the agenda.
The questions now asked by the European Court fundamentally relate to what extent the defendant Member States can refer to the illegality of the quota decision in this procedure, also with regard to the fact that earlier Hungary and Slovakia contested the decision, but the court did not annul it in its judgement.
In the answers given to the questions, Hungary – in harmony with the position it has represented throughout the lawsuit to date – pointed out that, regardless of the issue of the legality of the decision, Article 72 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which maintains the right of Member States to adopt measures that are necessary for maintaining law and order and safeguarding internal security, allows Member States to justify the non-execution of the quota decision in an infringement lawsuit, and therefore they cannot be held responsible for the infringement attributed to them. Hungary additionally maintains that the Commission’s procedure was unlawful for multiple reasons, and the petition must therefore be rejected.
After the hearing scheduled for 15 May 2019, the Advocate General appointed in the case will present a motion; a judgement may be expected in the summer or autumn of 2019. As the temporal effect of the quota decision expired in September 2017, Hungary takes the view that even in the case of a default judgement it cannot be applied retroactively.