What are the specific 2020 changes Hungary made to asylum procedures that led to the original ECJ finding?

1. The “declaration of intent” requirement: outsourcing asylum applications to embassies

Hungary enacted a rule in 2020 making submission of an asylum claim contingent on a prior “declaration of intent” filed at a Hungarian embassy in a third country (not within the EU), effectively requiring applicants to travel to places such as Belgrade or Kyiv to obtain permission to enter and apply — a change the ECJ found made access to the asylum procedure neither “effective, easy and rapid” nor compliant with EU law ^{[2] [4] [1]}.

2. Transit zones and detention-like conditions at the border

Before and during 2020 Hungary confined many asylum seekers to so‑called transit zones on the Serbian border, holding applicants in closed, container‑camp arrangements that the Court had already criticised as unlawful detention; the 2020 measures kept a system in place that insulated claimants from normal asylum processing and exacerbated isolation and deprivation of liberty ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Preventing stay pending appeal and onward procedural safeguards

The ECJ’s December 2020 finding emphasised that Hungary’s rules obstructed the right of applicants to remain on Hungarian territory while they appealed a rejection and undermined procedural safeguards by removing people deemed illegally staying before appeals were exhausted — conduct the Court said transferred the enforcement burden to other Member States and amounted to a serious breach of common EU policy ^{[6] [5] [7]}.

4. Practical effect: “virtually impossible” access to apply

Multiple EU rulings and Commission complaints concluded that the combined effect of embassy gatekeeping, restricted access at the border, and detention practices rendered the filing of asylum applications in Hungary for many migrants “virtually impossible,” dramatically reducing applications and prompting the Commission to refer Hungary to the Court ^{[8] [9] [1]}.

5. Budapest’s defence and the political context

Budapest defended the 2020 measures as pandemic‑era public‑health precautions and later pointed to the closure of physical transit zones as evidence of compliance, while repeatedly framing the rules within a broader political project of strict border control under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s anti‑migration platform; the ECJ, however, rejected public‑health justification as disproportionate where rules denied EU procedural guarantees ^{[2] [7] [10]}.

6. What the ECJ legally singled out in 2020

Legally, the Court pinpointed three failings: Hungary had restricted access to the common EU asylum procedure by outsourcing initial access to embassies (the declaration of intent), unlawfully detained applicants in transit zones, and failed to guarantee the right to remain pending appeal and proper safeguards before removal — breaches the Court characterised as “unprecedented and exceptionally serious” because they deliberately evaded the EU’s common asylum framework ^{[1] [3] [5] [6]}.

7. Competing narratives and implications

Reporting and Budapest’s statements present competing narratives — public‑health necessity and border defence versus legal dereliction of EU obligations — with Brussels and the ECJ stressing systemic rights violations and Hungary portraying the measures as sovereignty and security choices; sources show the legal finding rests on specific procedural changes (embassy declaration, detention/transit zone regime, removal without stay of proceedings) rather than abstract policy disagreement ^{[2] [5] [7]}.