Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

234 Judit Tóth and Endre Sik
100
80
percentages
60
40
20
very good
good
bad
very bad
0
From the
EU, 1999
From the
EU, 2000
To the
EU, 1999
To the
EU, 2000
Figure 12.4 The expectation regarding the social effects of migration in the course of EU
accession (%).
Source: TÁRKI, Omnibus, 1999, 2000.
agreements and visa restrictions, have been introduced, consecutively or in parallel,
precisely over a period in which the numbers of irregular migrants are fluctuating
and those of asylum applicants are stable. It means that there is no statistical or
economic evidence during the 1990s which could directly justify these restrictions
against aliens, that characterise all migrants as probable enemies or potential
criminals or at least abusive persons (Tóth 2001a).
In this context the restrictive elements of legal and institutional control over
border crossings, preconditions of entry and residence of all foreigners have been
regulated as follows:
• refoulement, the detention of aliens denied the right to enter or to reside in the
country;
• stringent rules on residence authorisation and expulsion;
• a set of readmission agreements that provide for chain-deportation;
• asylum procedures and the detention of illegal migrants as applicants utilising
the procedure in the case of manifestly unfounded requests, adoption of the ‘safe
country’ principle;
• introduction of ‘tolerated migrant’ and ‘temporary protection’ categories;
• restrictions on the acquisition of citizenship;
• reduced stability of settled migrants (withdrawal of ‘green card’, their
expulsion).
All of these devices to combat clandestine migration and applicants abusing the
system were imported and did not come from the public law tradition of Hungary
(Tóth 2001b). Moreover, citizens of Hungary, considered as third country nationals
in European Community law, have been subjected to almost all of these restrictive
and preventive legal and administrative instruments, while Hungary has introduced
the same measures in parallel against foreigners arriving from and out of its own
region.