Márton Bisztrai | Menedék Association | 30 May 2023

Within the ReROOT project, our team at the Menedék Association focuses on the arrival infrastructure of third-country nationals in the Hungarian higher education system. These arrival infrastructures do not emerge in a vacuum but in a specific atmosphere of Hungary’s migration scene. This blog will present the different interests of two major political areas setting this scene, e.g. 1) the area of ‘migration’ power politics and 2) the area of migration realpolitik. 

It might be confusing that one will not find two opposing entities behind the duality of seemingly controversial areas. Instead, it is the same united political power, FIDESZ, the governing party.

The media and political decision-makers often interpret Hungary’s migration atmosphere incompletely. In most cases, the statements are driven by morality, political agendas, and ideologies. For instance, voices that criticise the Hungarian government often use expressions like “anti-migration regime,” “evilness,” “political schizophrenia,” or “cognitive dissonance” – just as if we were dealing with a “lunatic.” Pro-government supporters comment on the same acts with words such as “braveness,” “defence,” “patriotism,” and “nationalism.”

Nevertheless, from our perspective, there is no cognitive dissonance within this unity. Rather, we witness the – in terms of their interests – logical behavioural patterns of the government.

Area of power politics – thematisation of public opinion

This consists of the tireless and continuous one-way political campaign (since 2015) that is aimed at the public. It refuses and stigmatises “migration” and discusses it in a framework of fear, national sovereignty, and conflict (or even war) of civilisations. 

The propaganda tools and resources used by the government in the last eight years are countless. Here we show only two of these examples (one of the earliest and one of the latest) to illustrate the intensity and rhetoric of Orbán’s power politics.

In the spring of 2015, under the umbrella of National Consultation, the government sent a questionnaire to Hungarian households with the eloquent title Immigration and Terrorism. One example from the twelve questions: Did you know that subsistence immigrants cross the Hungarian borders illegally, and in the recent past, the number of immigrants in Hungary increased twentyfold? 

And the results were: 72,63% marked the answer Yes, 23,45% I have heard about it, and 3.91% marked I did not know.

In July 2022, at the youth-political-cultural summer fest in Tusványos (Romania), Orbán gave a one-hour speech to the public. He mentioned migration among the most pressing challenges that the country is currently facing. And he went further.

“The internationalist left has a trick: they claim that nations living in Europe are originally mixed race. This is a deception because it bonds different issues. Because there are places where the European nations are mixing with those who arrive from outside Europe. Well, this is the mixed-race world. And we are here where European nations are mixing with each other. This is why, for example, in the Carpathian Basin, we are not mixed-race, only a mix of nations living in their own European home. (…) We are willing to mix with each other, but we do not want to become a mixed race; this is why we stopped the Turkish in Wien, and if I am right, this is why the French back in the old times stopped the Arabs at Pointers.”

These question-shaped, contextless statements, Orbán’s speeches and all the other propagandistic elements applied by the government are logical and play well in the power politics, from at least two angles. First, a mass of citizens, supporters, and potential voters resonate with it. And second, it is suitable to overshadow pressing and uncomfortable political and socioeconomically questions. 

The message is that “migration is bad. Therefore, we must prevent and stop migration and not support or manage it.” This political discourse (in this case, the one-way delivery of messages) dominates Hungary’s public opinion. 

Power politics use “migrant” or “migration” arbitrarily. It links them with concepts of illegal border crossing, non-Christian, non-European, non-white intruders, potential criminals, and essential threats.

The strategy proved to be successful. In 2018 and 2022, FIDESZ won the parliamentary elections by an overwhelming margin. Using “migration” helps them to create an ongoing conflict (a ground where they communicate power and success) with the EU authorities, civil society, and other Hungarian political parties. They successfully keep alive the concept that Hungary is under constant attack, and only the current regime can repel it. Illusion, perception, reality, lie? Not relevant. The only relevance is its extreme success.

This strategy defined the last years with such power that government could not stay only in the fields of symbolic propaganda and noise-making. The messages appeared in the legislation as well, matching the atmosphere created by these symbolic messages. For example, in 2016 Orbán initiated a constitutional amendment. The draft included such lines as Alien nations cannot settle in Hungary. In the end, the proposal did not receive the needed parliamentary support. Therefore, in 2018 the “Stop Soros Amendments” took place, which have three major elements: “(a) The law on the social responsibility of organisations support illegal migration; (b) The law on the immigration funding levy; (c) The law on immigration detention.”

The same year the government blocked civil society organisations and other service providers access to the EU’s Asylum, Migration, and Integration Funds.

It is hence not surprising that the number of refugees has dramatically declined. Since 2000 the authorities have recognised the international protection need for approximately 10 000 people. According to the last (2022) statistics, 2 500 remained in Hungary. At the same time, however, the appearance of propaganda symbols in legislation did not curb the number of newly arriving foreigners. There are no less veiled Muslim women taking their children to the playgrounds in Budapest or no less Sub-Saharan African men walking in countryside towns. There are no fewer Iranian tenants in Budapest’s rental sector, and the Georgian, Vietnamese or Mongolian workers have not disappeared from the construction sites of the priority industrial investments—instead, the contrary.

The Central Statistical Office says that in 2015, 145 000 foreign citizens were living in Hungary, and by 2022 their number was 202 000. The increasing arrival of third-country nationals primarily causes the 40% growth.

The second competitor: the area of realpolitik – interests, needs, and solutions

The area of realpolitik concerns political actions, responses, and solutions that are based on economic needs, demographical trends, and diplomatic challenges. Whereas in the area of powerpolitics the government successfully uses (abuses) the word “migration” when engaging with its potential voters. In other segments, realpolitik uses, encourages, and organises migration to respond to demography-related economic challenges. First of all, Hungarian society is ageing. During the last forty years, the population decrease has been permanent. Secondly, according to the estimation of the Statistical Office, 350 000 Hungarian citizens left the country during the last ten years. The UN International Migration Stock estimates a higher ratio. And lastly, approximately 15 000 Hungarian youths are enrolled in foreign higher education. As a result, state investments, industry, service sector, agriculture, and food industries face labour shortages. Therefore, it is unsurprising that inbound labour migration has grown parallel to emigration. In 2015 the authorities registered 39 000 foreign workers. In 2022 under the same legal framework 74 000 people were registered. During the same period, the number of international students increased by 50%, from 20 000 to 32 000. Behind this significant growth is the state that stepped up as the primary recruiter. 

For example, in 2013 the Hungarian government announced a large-scale scholarship system called Stipendium Hungaricum that offers education programs in local universities to third-country nationals. Currently, 12 300 scholarship-holder students (primarily from the Middle East, North Africa, Post-Soviet countries, and South East Asia) study in universities in Budapest and rural towns.

Stipendium Hungaricum is neither initiated nor led by the universities or representatives of education politics. Instead, it is driven and implemented under the control of the Foreign Ministry and the umbrella of the “Opening to the East” policy in the form of bilateral interstate agreements.

Whereas power politics symbolically and physically blocked the asylum channel from Syrians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Kosovars, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Myanmarese, Iranians, etc, the student mobility channel has been opened to young citizens, often from the mentioned countries at the same time. 

Stipendium Hungaricum beneficiaries receive tuition-free education at undergraduate, master’s, and PhD levels. The language of study is English, and monthly financial support is also part of the package. 

Meanwhile, foreign relations within the EU are worsening, and diplomatic links are strengthening outside the EU. Although the quality of higher education (with few exceptions) is not in competition with Western institutions, the spread of English-based education resulted in organic development. It attracts more and more fee-paying international students. International students as a whole (Stipendium Hungaricum, Erasmus+, fee-paying) create financial profit for the national economy.

From the perspective of many applicants, the advantage of the Hungarian offer is the English curriculum, the stipend, and that “Hungary is Europe.” Although Hungary is an arrival country towards a Western European context, more students try to prolong their stay here by continuing studies at a higher level or searching for employment. This phenomenon may contradict the original concept of the scholarship. When launching the program, the Foreign Ministry made the objectives clear: students return to their home countries after graduation, help to develop bilateral diplomatic relations, engage in transnational economic or academic activities, and in general, spread the good image of Hungary. The long-term integration of foreign students was not on the agenda.

In conclusion, power politics dressed in an ideological costume and realpolitik compete. The slogans used in Orbán’s rhetoric – like “mixed race” and “If you come to Hungary, you cannot take the job of Hungarians” – echo in other fields of migration. At the same time, realpolitik is working behind the scenes and, for example, introducing changes in the immigration policy that make the students’ transition easier towards the labour market (however, still tricky).

The Hungarian government supports and organises the arrival of third-country nationals in some areas, for example, in higher education and the labour market. It is a benefit-oriented, highly controlled form of migration that keeps people in a state of temporality. Created by realpolitik, several entry points and migration channels led to Hungary. At the same time, an anti-integration ideology is in place (painfully visible in the public rhetoric). Both of these areas are blocking the settlement, permanence, integration, and “mixing”.

By Tamlyn Monson I Coventry University | 11 May 2023

Wednesday 26 April 2023 saw the launch of a guidance document on supporting Barking & Dagenham residents who are subject to the ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF) condition. The audience included representatives of the council and voluntary sector, and a number of residents with lived experience. I was among several members attending from a local network aimed at improving support for migrants in the borough, an initiative supported by BD_Collective – a network of networks that supports change in the borough. Also attending were members from various local community and support organisations, including Ultimate Counselling, The Source, Community Resources and Marks Gate Relief Project.

The NRPF condition is a restriction imposed by the Home Office on immigrants to the UK, which prevents them from accessing the ordinary safety net of state welfare support that citizens and formally ‘settled’ people can if they are faced with hardship or destitution. Being subject to the NRPF condition is particularly difficult for anyone who falls on hard times, becomes homeless, loses their job, or – in the case of an asylum seeker for instance – is not permitted to work due to Home Office Policy. Together with work restrictions imposed by the Home Office, the NRPF condition creates structural inequalities within the populations these organisations serve, inequalities that cannot be fully addressed at the local level, although their impacts are felt locally. So the NRPF condition also poses difficulties for council and voluntary sector services seeking an inclusive approach to supporting residents.

My year of ethnographic research in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham in 2021-22 showed how the needs of such residents often remain under the radar. It also suggested that service providers are often unclear what support is legally permitted, and what is actually available locally, to people with no recourse to public funds. As the first step to fill this gap, this guidance is a cause for celebration. It was co-produced through a Place-Based Partnership of council and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) stakeholders, with Dagenham-based refugee-led organisation Ultimate Counselling leading an engagement with 157 residents subject to NRPF conditions and conducting a survey of 131 frontline staff.

When Ultimate Counselling director Sarah Kasule shared the key themes that emerged from focus groups with residents, I noticed strong overlaps with ReROOT* research findings on barriers and enablers for new arrivals in the borough. I highlight three of them below.

Residents’ Language Capacities

My research for ReROOT found that this is a borough where many residents struggle to speak, read or understand English, but signposting – both verbal and visual – is seldom multilingual. In addition to this, key helplines of the NHS and Citizens Advice Bureau do not feature the option of interpretation before launching into recorded English messages that must be navigated to access them. Hospitals issue jargon-laden letters in English to families who cannot understand their content. Landlords of dispersed asylum housing expect asylum seeker residents to simply sign tenancy agreements written in complex English regardless of their language proficiency.  Significantly, against this backdrop, Sarah Kasule announced that this guidance document will be made available in the main languages spoken by participants in the co-production.

Barriers of Knowledge and Digital Access

Lack of digital literacy and lack of local know-how were key blockages which came up over and over again in my research for ReROOT. Sarah Kasule highlighted similar barriers for many residents with the NRPF condition. She highlighted how lack of access to smart devices, data or digital literacy were key barriers to accessing statutory services, and pointed to residents’ lack of knowledge in terms of both what they were entitled to or how to navigate systems to solve housing problems for instance. This resonated strongly with findings from the ethnographic research, where I met people who were unaware that they could access free primary healthcare, or incorrectly believed they could not access the Citizens’ Advice Bureau because the organisation’s name suggested that the service was for ‘Citizens’ only.

The Role of Social Connections

Another finding from ReROOT research was that the right social connections can help offset the barriers of language, digital access and know-how, but that many marginalised newcomers did not have the social connections they needed to overcome these barriers. In a similar way, Sarah Kasule highlighted the theme of social isolation, noting for example that many participants in the focus groups did not have friends or family to help them when they arrived, and that asylum seekers arriving alone in dispersed accommodation were given no support to form connections in the local area . She illustrated the important role of social connections when she explained that knowledge gaps often persist because residents with no recourse to public funds are socially isolated, or because the people that they know are also unaware of their rights and entitlements.

The two hour event was eye-opening for some attendees because it included residents whose lives and challenges are usually out of sight. Single parents had to bring their children to the event, including a child with special educational needs, which brought some noise, challenging behaviour, and interruptions of mothers’ participation. The barrier to inclusion caused by lack of childcare support was tangible. A group of homeless non-English speaking men were present, and an interpreter communicated their desperate request for help with GP registration and more toilets in Barking. The latter request in particular seemed to cause confusion, perhaps because the majority of attendees have homes, and are less dependent on public water and sanitation infrastructure. It was clear that few attendees shared the experience of one man I spoke to during my research. He was sleeping under a bridge, in an area with no 24-hour toilet. At night, when the local shopping centre and library were closed, he would have had no choice but to suffer the indignity of urinating or defecating outside. Yet, rather than empathy, he received a notice that treated these indignities as a form of anti-social behaviour he was committing. He was forbidden to sleep there anymore.

Fortunately, the voices of participants were heard. Head of Universal Services, Zoinul Abidin, responded in closing that the council would consider the toilet question, and would also consider bringing GPs to community hubs to register new patients who were struggling to access them. Together with the commitment by the council’s Director of Community Participation and Engagement, Rhodri Rowlands, to keep the NRPF guidance document alive by revisiting it in 12 months time, it was reassuring to see this expression of Barking & Dagenham’s commitment to the council’s vision of ‘No one left behind: we all belong.’

by Aimilia Voulvouli  | University of Thessaly

It is early in the morning in the inter-cultural centre Stavrodromi in Karditsa, Greece, and employees as well as beneficiaries, that is, international protection seekers are frustrated. Stavrodromi, which can be translated as “Crossroads”, is a pilot infrastructure created through the “Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation” – ESTIA[1] program. It is located in the heart of the city, at the Municipal Market which is a bazaar styled structure that hosts public and private businesses as well as a social grocery store, a bar, a small museum, the Red Cross branch of Karditsa, a radio station, a local newspaper, cultural associations and it is generally considered a meeting point by the locals.

Stavrodromi has been founded by the Development Agency of Karditsa (its Greek acronym reads as ANKA) and hosts all the social services of ESTIA. Eventually, it became a point of reference for the beneficiaries. There, they can get social services aimed at them or information on other services they need. It also runs a language school for Greek, Arabic and French. Computer spaces are also available for the beneficiaries to use, as well as a space for women and their children to spend their time creatively.

In May 2022 the last installment of the funding of 2021 has not yet been allocated to implementing bodies such as ANKA. Without these installments,  rent and utilities are going to be overdue for the rental apartments that are used by the ESTIA program. A few months ago, the cash assistance program which was initially implemented by UNHCR[2] was taken over by the Greek authorities which also resulted in delays in payment. For about six months now, both employees and beneficiaries find themselves in an indeterminate situation. Employees don’t know when they are going to get paid for the services they have signed a contract to provide,  and whether these contracts are going to be renewed. The beneficiaries don’t know when they are going to get their cash assistance or whether their shelters are going to be secure.

“We had to change apartment and live with two more families and now we are told that this might happen again due to financial difficulties. We are like children here who are told what to do. There is no stability”, said Tarik, one of the beneficiaries, during our interview earlier that week in May 2022. Similarly, John said during an informal discussion while he was visiting Stavrodromi to meet up with a potential employer: “My asylum interview is in May 2023, in the meantime I wake up in the morning and I don’t know what’s next. Am I going to have the same apartment? Am I going to be able to find a more steady job? I am now working here and there whenever there is a need for hands from the employers that ANKA is in liaison with. I feel like a child whose everyday life gets dictated by my parents and I have to improvise and be creative the whole time”. On the other end, Maria a psychologist working for ESTIA told me that she has already started looking for a new job because she understands that the stability that she had until now is not going to last long. In an informal discussion I had with the CEO of ANKA back in December, he told me that while they are legally not obliged to continue offering their services since they have not received the agreed amount, they feel morally obliged to do so, for the beneficiaries, the employees and the owners of the apartments they rent. “But for how long?” he said. I asked him how they are going to deal with the lack of funds in the meantime and he replied that he and his colleagues are trying to find ways which are not exactly official at the risk of having themselves held accountable by the home owners, the suppliers of food and other basic necessities and other  employees of ESTIA.

Heath Cabot (2013:453), writes that the indeterminate effects of “aid encounters in the context of asylum procedures may give rise to a circumscribed agency” that attempts to overcome structural hindrances and institutional gaps. Is it through this agency, within the ‘capitalist cracks’, of people acting ‘in-and-against the system’ that arrival situations are being created, transformed and appropriated in Karditsa? How can/should beneficiaries position themselves in such a process? Which are the legal indeterminacies and how creative can moral praxis become?

Our fieldwork thus, revolves around the formal but mainly the informal infrastructures that are created through crossroads and despite off the structural hindrances of ESTIA.

Sources cited:

Cabot, H. 2013 “The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process”. American Ethnologist 40(3): 452-466.

Holloway, J. 2010 Crack Capitalism. London: Pluto Press

Suggested reading:

Marry-Anne, Karlsen, M. Jacobsen Christine, and Khosravi Shahram. 2020. Waiting and the Temporalities of Irregular Migration: Taylor and Francis.  With a chapter on Greece by Katerina Rozakou.