Hungary will soon be deprived of a share of its EU funds for refusing to pay a fine imposed in a blow to Viktor Orban's regime.
The European Commission has triggered a special procedure to deduct the €200million fine that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has imposed on Hungary over the country's long-standing restrictions on the right to asylum.
Budapest had missed the first deadline in late August, prompting the executive to send a second payment request with a deadline of September 17.
After this second request was ignored, the Commission confirmed it would activate the "offsetting procedure" to subtract the €200m fine from Hungary's allocated share of the EU budget.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen
Reuters
It comes after Hungary closed down a major transit route through Hungary for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty in 2015, bolstering his domestic support but earned him widespread criticism from EU allies.
In June, the EU's top court ruled that Hungary must pay a €200m fine for not implementing changes to its policy of handling migrants and asylum seekers at its border.
In the weeks that followed, Orban ratcheted up his anti-EU rhetoric, calling the fine "outrageous and acceptable" and arguing that his country should be paid €2billion for defending its borders since 2015.
He said in a recent radio interview: "We should not be punished but our achievements should be recognised and money should not be taken away from us but given to us so that we can continue this work...It is a matter of time."
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