Earlier this month, Hungary announced a new facilitated visa scheme under which citizens of eight countries, including Russia and Belarus, can enter Hungary without security checks or other restrictions. Budapest claims that many of those entering under this scheme will be building a nuclear power plant.
“We are unpleasantly surprised by media reports that Hungary has included Russian and Belarusian citizens in its national immigration programme, which will allow them to enter and move freely within the Schengen area,” Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in a written statement.
“In Lithuania’s view, Hungary’s decision poses very serious threats to the security of the Schengen area and many European countries, and must therefore be responded to at the EU level,” the Lithuanian foreign minister said.
The minister believes that Hungary’s decision requires a separate assessment at a time when European countries are facing an increasing number of acts of sabotage, which this reinforces the urgency of finding an adequate response to such a stance by one member state.
I don’t think, granting people easy visa rights that shouldn’t get them for good security reasons can be considered a severe violation of human rights though.
While the human rights situation in Hungary is also getting worse, i also doubt it to qualify as “severe” yet. At least so far none of the other EU countries have used that as a formal reason and Germany was happy to deport a queer antifascist to Hungary just a few weeks back, for allegedly having attacked Nazis there. This definetly should not have had happened, but goes to show how far away from calling Hungary out on human rights violations we still are.
Problem with border patrols though is that they don’t work against Schengen visas anyways afaik. If you are a legal resident in one EU country, you can travel inside the Schengen area.