The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ordered Hungary to pay a lump sum of €200 million over the country's long-standing restrictions on asylum law.
Additionally, Hungary will have to pay €1 million per day of delay. The money will be automatically subtracted from Hungary's allocated share of the EU budget, parts of which remain frozen over similar legal problems.
The failure to "fulfill obligations constitutes an unprecedented and exceptionally serious breach of EU law," the ECJ said in a press release.
The dispute dates back to December 2020, when the court first ruled that Hungary, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, had limited access to asylum procedures for those seeking international protection in the country. The Hungarian authorities were accused of unlawfully detaining applicants in transit zones, violating their right to remain in the national territory while they appealed their rejected applications and expelling them.
As Hungary ignored the December 2020 ruling, the European Commission launched new legal action, which resulted in Thursday's judgment.
The judges conclude that Hungary has disregarded the "principle of sincere cooperation" and is "deliberately evading" the application of the bloc's asylum legislation.
"That conduct constitutes a serious threat to the unity of EU law, which has an extraordinarily serious impact both on private interests, particularly the interests of asylum seekers, and on the public interest," the judges say.
Since Hungary's wrongdoing puts further pressure on neighbouring member states, who have to take care of the migrants expelled by Budapest, the legal breach "seriously undermines the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility."
Since coming into power, Orbán has embraced a hard-line stance on migration, worsening tensions with Brussels. Last month, the country voted against every file contained under the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.
