The leader of the centre-right party EPP, Manfred Weber, has slammed Hungary’s recent decision to simplify visa restrictions for Russian visitors by introducing a new fast-track visa system.

Earlier in July, Budapest quietly introduced a new visa regime for eight countries, including Russia and Belarus. The policy, said to be designed for seasonal workers under its National Card programme, would allow visitors to enter the country without security checks and enable them to move freely to other EU countries.

The decision sparked EPP President Weber to send a letter to European Council President Charles Michel on Tuesday to voice his concern about Hungary — which currently presides over the Council of the European Union until the New Year — enabling malign actors, including spies, to enter the bloc more easily, according to the FT.

The “questionable” new rules “create grave loopholes for espionage activities, … potentially allowing large numbers of Russians to enter Hungary with minimal supervision, posing a serious risk to national security,” Weber said in his letter.

“This policy could also make it easier for Russians to move around the Schengen area, bypassing the restrictions required by EU law,” he added.

Brussels is already in contact with Hungarian authorities over this issue, as reduced checks on Russian citizens could pose a threat to the continent’s security, the European Commission’s spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“Our position throughout our policy is that Russia is a security threat to the EU and hence all instruments at the union level and at member state level need to ensure the safety of the union and also take into account the security of the Schengen,” Anitta Hipper explained.

Russian citizens are not banned from entering the EU and the border control-free Schengen zone, which also includes non-EU members Norway and Switzerland.

However, a series of sanction packages in response to the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, including a ban on Russian-owned airlines operating in EU airspace, made it more difficult for Russian nationals to travel to the bloc.

At the same time, rules on issuing work permits are a matter of national policy, and each EU member state can decide on its own criteria.

Earlier this year, Hungary overhauled its immigration law, making it harder for certain categories of third-country nationals to acquire residence permits.

Accusations of disloyalty keep piling up

Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has caused significant ire in Brussels and other EU capitals over its pro-Russia stance and increasing overtures toward Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent months.

Just days after taking over the EU presidency on 1 July — under the slogan “Make Europe Great Again”, a clear reference to former US President Donald Trump’s notorious tagline — the Hungarian PM went on a series of visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing, which Brussels says were not sanctioned by the bloc.

His meeting with Putin in Moscow, which Orbán dubbed “Peace Mission 3.0”, caused a diplomatic tempest in European circles and increased calls to strip Hungary of its presidency and voting rights by triggering Article 7 of the EU treaty.

Last Monday, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell delivered a blistering rebukeagainst Orbán, stating that his self-described “peace mission” went against EU laws and labelling his actions as “a lack of loyal cooperation”.

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Orbán’s behaviour also triggered a diplomatic spat with neighbouring Poland. On Sunday, Poland’s Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski said Hungary should “join a union with Putin” after Orbán lobbed a series of accusations against Warsaw for its alleged duplicitous actions.

“The Poles are pursuing the most sanctimonious and the most hypocritical policy in the whole of Europe,” Orbán said in a speech over the weekend. “They are lecturing us morally and criticising us for our economic relations with Russia, and at the same time, they are doing business with the Russians, buying oil indirectly, and running the Polish economy with it.”

“We do not do business with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Orbán, who is on the margins of international society — both in the European Union and NATO,” Bartoszewski said in his response.

This is not the first time Orbán and the EPP — of which his ruling party Fidesz was a member — locked horns. Fidesz quit the EPP group in the European Parliament in March 2021 to prevent its suspension or expulsion.

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Prior to that, the EPP party suspended Fidesz’s membership in the EU’s largest party in March 2019 over its rule-of-law record.

After the European elections in June, the Hungarian leader formed his own far-right parliamentary group, Patriots for Europe.

Following news that the EPP chief invited his main domestic opponent, Peter Magyar, to join the centre-right group in the European Parliament, Orbán labelled Weber as “Hungarophobic”.

“Manfred Weber has only one goal that is really close to his heart, and that is to harm Hungary,” Orban said in a radio interview in Berlin in mid-June.

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Euronews has reached out to the Hungarian government for comment.