Hungary refuses to pay fines for breaking EU asylum rules

Hungary refuses to pay fines for breaking EU asylum rules
The European Union on Wednesday began the process of clawing back hundreds of millions of euros in funds meant to go Hungary after its ant-migrant government refused to pay a huge fine for breaking the bloc’s asylum rules. (AP/File)
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Updated 18 September 2024
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Hungary refuses to pay fines for breaking EU asylum rules

Hungary refuses to pay fines for breaking EU asylum rules
  • The European Court of Justice described Hungary’s actions as “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law”
  • Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slammed its ruling as “outrageous and unacceptable”

BRUSSELS: The European Union on Wednesday began the process of clawing back hundreds of millions of euros in funds meant to go Hungary after its ant-migrant 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 200 million euros ($223 million) for persistently depriving migrants of their right to apply for asylum. The court imposed an additional fine of 1 million euros for every day it failed to comply.
The European Court of Justice described Hungary’s actions as “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law.” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán slammed its 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 200 million euro from upcoming payments from the EU budget toward Hungary,” commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari said. He said it would take time to identify which parts of Hungary’s funding could be deducted.
Ujvari said the commission has also sent a first payment request on the daily fines amounting to 93 million euros ($103 million) 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 1 million people arrived in Europe in 2015, most of them fleeing conflict in Syria.
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 a pair of 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.
The transit zones were closed in 2020, shortly after that ruling.
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.
After the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in 2020, the government also pushed through a law forcing asylum seekers to travel to Belgrade or Kyiv to apply for a travel permit at its embassies there before entering Hungary. Only once back could they file their applications.
People have the right to apply for asylum or other forms of international protection if they fear for their safety in their home countries or face the prospect of persecution based on their race, religion, ethnic background, gender or other discrimination.


UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime

UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime
Updated 14 October 2024
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UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime

UN chief says any attacks on Lebanon peacekeepers could be a war crime
  • “UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement

NEW YORK: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday that any attacks against peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” his spokesperson said after Israeli tanks burst through the gates of a peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon.
It was the latest accusation of Israeli violations and attacks against the UN peacekeeping mission, known as UNIFIL, in recent days.
“UNIFIL peacekeepers remain in all positions and the UN flag continues to fly,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
“The Secretary-General reiterates that UNIFIL personnel and its premises must never be targeted. Attacks against peacekeepers are in breach of international law, including international humanitarian law. They may constitute a war crime,” he said.


World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006

World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006
Updated 13 October 2024
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World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006

World Bank says 26 poorest countries in worst financial shape since 2006
  • IDA normally is replenished every three years with contributions from World Bank shareholding countries

WASHINGTON: The world’s 26 poorest countries, home to 40 percent of the most poverty-stricken people, are more in debt than at any time since 2006 and increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters and other shocks, a new World Bank report showed on Sunday.
The report finds that these economies are poorer today on average than they were on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the rest of the world has largely recovered from COVID and resumed its growth trajectory.
Released a week before World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings get underway in Washington, the report confirms a major setback to efforts to eradicate extreme poverty and underscores the World Bank’s efforts this year to raise $100 billion to replenish its financing fund for the world’s poorest countries, the International Development Association (IDA).
The 26 poorest economies studied, which have annual per-capita incomes of less than $1,145, are increasingly reliant on IDA grants and near-zero interest rate loans as market financing has largely dried up, the World Bank said. Their average debt-to-GDP ratio of 72 percent is at an 18-year high and half of the group are either in debt distress or at high risk of it.
Two thirds of the 26 poorest countries are either in armed conflicts or have difficulty maintaining order because of institutional and social fragility, which inhibit foreign investment, and nearly all export commodities, exposing them to frequent boom-and-bust cycles, the report said.
“At a time when much of the world simply backed away from the poorest countries, IDA has been their lifeline,” World Bank chief economist Indermit Gill said in a statement. “Over the past five years, it has poured most of its financial resources into the 26 low-income economies, keeping them afloat through the historic setbacks they suffered.”
IDA normally is replenished every three years with contributions from World Bank shareholding countries. It raised a record $93 billion in 2021 and World Bank President Ajay Banga is aiming to exceed that with over $100 billion in pledges by Dec. 6.
Natural disasters also have taken a greater toll on these countries over the past decade. Between 2011 and 2023, natural disasters were associated with average annual losses of 2 percent of GDP, five times the average among lower-middle-income countries, pointing up the need for much higher investment, the World Bank said.
The report also recommended that these economies, which have large informal sectors operating outside their tax systems, do more to help themselves. This includes improving tax collections by simplifying taxpayer registration and tax administration and improving the efficiency of public spending.


Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM

Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM
Updated 13 October 2024
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Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM

Sweden wants EU to brand Iran’s Revolutionary Guards ‘terror’ group: PM
  • Sweden’s Sapo intelligence agency has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, a claim Iran has denied

STOCKHOLM: Sweden wants the European Union to officially deem Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization after several attacks on Israeli targets in Sweden, Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Sunday.
Sweden’s Sapo intelligence agency has accused Iran of recruiting members of Swedish criminal gangs to commit “acts of violence” against Israeli and other interests in Sweden, a claim Iran has denied.
Three attacks have been carried out against the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in the past year, and two attacks have targeted an Israeli military technology firm in the past six months.
“We want Sweden to seriously address, with other EU countries, the incredibly problematic connection between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their destructive role in the (Middle East) region, but also their escalating actions around various European countries, including Sweden,” Kristersson told the Expressen newspaper.
“The only reasonable consequence ... is that we get a joint terror classification, so that we can act more broadly than (we can with) the sanctions that already exist,” he said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is a special branch of the Iranian armed forces whose officers hold key positions in Iran’s establishment
In May, Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter cited documents from Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad as saying that the head of the Swedish criminal network Foxtrot, Rawa Majid, and his archrival Ismail Abdo, head of the Rumba gang, had both been recruited by Iran.
Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported in early October that two recent attacks on the Israeli embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen had been ordered by Foxtrot at the behest of Iran.
 

 


France’s ‘unhappy’ Macron seeks new role after government shakeup

France’s ‘unhappy’ Macron seeks new role after government shakeup
Updated 13 October 2024
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France’s ‘unhappy’ Macron seeks new role after government shakeup

France’s ‘unhappy’ Macron seeks new role after government shakeup
  • In public, the 46-year-old Macron is still all smiles, but in private, he has been seething

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron weathered a turbulent political summer, but he feels isolated and is frustrated with his new right-wing government, according to people close to him.

Macron’s appointment of 73-year-old conservative Michel Barnier as prime minister ended two months of political chaos after snap legislative elections in July.

In line with his new role under the power-sharing arrangement, the center-rightpresident has taken a back seat on the domestic front, letting Barnier name a Cabinet and concentrating on foreign policy.

In public, the 46-year-old Macron is still all smiles, but in private, he has been seething.

“I did not choose this government,” Macron recently told a trusted confidante, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity.

“They make me feel ashamed,” the president said of some of the most conservative ministers.

The most hard-line member of the new government, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, stirred controversy just days into the job, vowing to crack down on immigration and saying that “the rule of law is neither intangible nor sacred.”

After performing strongly in the snap election but failing to secure an outright victory, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party is a potential kingmaker that could decide the fate of Barnier’s fragile minority government.


Comoros to hold parliamentary elections on Jan. 12

Comoros to hold parliamentary elections on Jan. 12
Updated 13 October 2024
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Comoros to hold parliamentary elections on Jan. 12

Comoros to hold parliamentary elections on Jan. 12
  • “We are not ready to take part in legislative elections until we know what is going to happen,” Salim Issa Abdillah, leader of the opposition JUWA party, who stood against Assoumani in the last election, said

MORONI: Comoros will hold elections to its 33-seat parliament on Jan. 12, according to a decree published on Saturday.
Opposition parties have said they will boycott the poll. The Indian Ocean archipelago, with a population of about 800,000, last had parliamentary polls in January 2020.
In January, incumbent President Azali Assoumani was reelected for another five-year term, but the opposition rejected the results, alleging instances of ballot stuffing and of voting being ended before the official closing time.
The government denied the claims.
“We are not ready to take part in legislative elections until we know what is going to happen,” Salim Issa Abdillah, leader of the opposition JUWA party, who stood against Assoumani in the last election, said.
“We do not trust Azali Assoumani because no matter what commitments he makes, he will not respect them.”
Orange, another opposition party, has also said it will not participate in the poll because the president had re-appointed the current head of the electoral body, Idrissa Said, whom they accuse of favoring the ruling Convention for the Renewal of the Comoros party.
Said denies the allegations.
Assoumani’s opponents suspect him of wanting to prepare his eldest son, Nour El-Fath, to replace him in 2029 when his current term ends.
Assoumani has been ruling Comoros since 1999 when he came to power through a coup. He has since won three elections.