Eastern European leaders double down on anti-migrant rhetoric

The leaders of Hungary, Slovakia and Serbia met in Komarno, Slovakia, located near the Hungarian border, on October 22, where they discussed the success of their joint and individual efforts to cut the number of irregular migrants entering the bloc.

According to the EU’s border agency Frontex, the number of illegal entrances through the western Balkans has plummeted by nearly 80 percent year-on-year in the first nine months of 2024. Only 17,000 people managed to enter the bloc on these routes to date this year.

However, the countries on the Balkan route are also among the less affected ones, as most migrants entering the EU through the Balkans usually move on to richer countries in western Europe — like Germany. Despite this, some of the staunchest opponents of a more liberal, EU-led approach to immigration are found in these parts of Eastern Europe.

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‘Protection of external EU borders’ at all costs

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has long been one of the harshest critics of the EU’s migration policy. 

In particular, Orban has been fighting against the EU Migration Pact, which was finalized and signed earlier in the year and which calls for redistribution quotas of migrants in the bloc between frontline states like Italy, Spain and Greece and nations less affected by arrival numbers.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was elected in office last year, has been echoing many of Orban’s sentiments, referring to his own government’s fight against irregular migration as a “priority” issue.

“We were right when we said very clearly at the beginning of the migration crisis that the basis of the fight against illegal migration is the protection of external EU borders,” Fico stressed during the meeting.

Fico added that the three leaders had discussed that they were in favor of dedicating a substantial part of the 2027 EU budget to fighting irregular migration.

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The rise of the far-right

Irregular migration into the EU remains a highly divisive political issue across the bloc, with a number of far-right parties gaining support in recent months in various member states by prioritizing immigration as a campaign issue.

Various governments have tried to keep the rise of far-right extremists at bay by pushing for tougher measures against irregular migrants — but only with limited success. Most recently, Austria joined the league of European countries headed by far-right governments following an election in September, which many have called a watershed moment in the country’s modern history.

Various EU leaders have also agreed to jointly take action against irregular migration in response to these developments; at a summit last week, they agreed among other things on the speeding up of deportations of migrants who don’t qualify for asylum, for instance.

Meanwhile, Hungarian leader Orban took to the social platform X to say that irregular migration was “destroying” the bloc, and that he was working alongside others to enact a “new policy to stop migration.”

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Going solo against irregular migration

The countries situated along the Balkan route continue to take their own measures to curb irregular migrants at their borders; Hungary, for instance, has erected a heavily guarded fence on its southern border following the onset of the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015, which saw over 1 million people arriving in the bloc.

Since the fence only borders Hungary’s neighbors to the south and east but not to the north — such as Slovakia, the Slovak government decided last year to up the rate of checks on people and traffic entering the country by sending troops to the area.

Reports of traffic severely building up at times and slowing down trade between the two countries due to these measures being taken appear to have fallen on deaf ears in Bratislava.

Offshore processing centers

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban is among the main supporters of the idea of having asylum applications assessed before migrants stand a chance to enter the European Union.

Urban said that setting up offshore hotspots in safe countries for migrants, for example in northern Africa, could be a solution to address irregular movements into the bloc.

This comes after last week, Italy began working closely with EU non-member Albania, sending certain migrants intercepted at sea there to have their asylum requests processed — in exchange for millions in cash.

While other EU leaders have welcomed this as a model and are closely monitoring the application and success of the scheme, not every country appears to be enthused about such measures — especially if they were to be on the recipient end of the stick.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic for instance said that his country, which like Albania is not an EU member, would not agree to host such hotspots for irregular migrants on its territory.

The non-EU member Serbia, which hopes to join the bloc eventually, has also increasingly been clamping down on migrants, facing serious allegations of human rights abuses in some instances.

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Orban’s tirade against the EU

Hungarian leader Orban has been using similarly combative rhetoric in recent days, as his approval rating among voters appears to be falling.

He went as far as claiming that Brussels was trying to topple his government by trying install a “puppet government” there, which would agree with the EU on its approach on immigration.

In the past years, the EU has withheld billions of euros in aid to Hungary amid clashes over Orban’s autocratic and isolationist policies.

Speaking to his supporters, Orban said earlier in the week that Hungarians had to resist the European Union with the same vigor they had shown in their resistance against the Soviet Union in 1956, which was brutally crushed by Soviet troops. 

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with Reuters, AP