Hungary’s exclusion from the Schengen zone will start the process of its exclusion from the European Union, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters.
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Earlier, a group of 67 members of the European Parliament sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, demanding that action be taken against Hungary in connection with the alleged weakening of visa requirements for a number of countries, including Russia and Belarus.
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“Exclusion from the Schengen agreement is the beginning of exclusion from the European Union. I would be careful with the exclusion of countries from the European Union,” Tusk said.
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At the same time, he noted that there are other countries in the EU that issue visas to citizens of the Russian Federation and Belarus.
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“It seems that the rules of European law have been violated. But Hungary is not the only country that issues visas to Belarusians and Russians,” the Polish prime minister said.
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Earlier, the newspaper learned that the chairman of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber called on European leaders to take action against Hungary because of the supposed simplification of issuing visas to Russian citizens. Weber called for discussing Hungary’s actions on the issue of issuing visas to Russians at the next summit of European leaders in October.
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On July 9, the official gazette of the Hungarian government published a list of countries whose citizens have the right to apply for a “national card” – a two-year work visa. In addition to Russia and Belarus, the list includes Ukraine, Serbia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia. The introduction of the national card was one of the consequences of changes in Hungarian migration legislation, which came into force on January 1, 2024.
