Samenvatting

The European Migrant Crisis of 2015 has brought drastic challenges on national and European levels in regard to the reception of asylum seekers and in sharing responsibility among member states. Many eastern and southern member states, however, felt the necessity to cope with the consequences of the influx on their own terms by implementing specific policies that do not conform to the EU asylum policy, and in many cases, charters of human rights. These countries, including Italy and Hungary, often received criticism from the European and the International communities in the way they handle the asylum file. Breaches of human rights occurred frequently via disintegrational policies derived from historic and cultural sentiments that crystallised anti-migration and anti-EU approaches in Italy and Hungary. The aim of this report was to establish a comparative analysis of asylum seekers’ rights violations between Hungary and Italy in order to examine the extent to which these rights are respected. Consequently, findings were reflected onto the general EU asylum framework to uncover the level to which selected member states adhere to EU law by examining relevant case law and secondary data imported from scholarly literature, NGOs and government reports. The main research question is as follows: ‘’to what extent are refugees rights, as laid down in international treaties and EU’s refugee and asylum policies, respected by Italy and Hungary? A comparative analysis’’. Research proved that violations have been occurring both systematically and purposely in both nations, triggering tensions with the EU that has frequently brought and is still bringing both nations under infringement procedures, for specific policies such as the Italian Pushback policy and the Hungarian Transit Zones policy. Analysis also showed that both governments are unwilling to address their violations since the EU punishment mechanism seems to be incapable of influencing Hungarian and Italian decision makers to improve their countries’ asylum policies, after reviewing multiple cases submitted to European courts. Finally, research explained that the EU has proved to be partially unsuccessful in the protection of asylum seekers’ human rights.