Within the European Union, the event now commonly framed as the 2015 “migration crisis” has spurred two distinct narratives that mirror a geographical divide between the receiving states of Western Europe and the transit states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). While the first group has framed migration more in terms of a moral obligation to help refugees, and an opportunity to aid ailing European economies; the latter group has largely limited its discourse to a security frame that depicts migrants as a threat to economies, societies and national identities.

Hungary, lying at the entry point of the Balkans migrant route into the Schengen Zone, has received heightened media attention compared to other CEE states. This attention has mainly involved heavy criticism of the securitization campaign launched by the center-right government in early 2015, the construction of a border fence, and the occasional mistreatment of refugees. On the other hand, rightwing parties and extremist groups all over the EU have hailed Hungary as a role model for the effective treatment of “illegal migration”

The present roundtable discussion seeks to offer a varied selection of local views in an attempt to offer a peek into diverging and competing narratives that are key to understanding current events in Hungary, but also in the wider CEE region. Through our panelists, we aim to introduce views from the state, from academia, and from civil society – the source of the most potent counternarrative within the current discourse.

The event is part of an ongoing research project at the Center of EU Enlargement Studies. The first study, reflecting preliminary results, can be accessed at the center’s website: www.cens.ceu.edu.

PROGRAM

10:00 Opening Remarks – Prof. Péter Balázs, Director, CEU Center for EU Enlargement Studies

10:05-11:45 Roundtable Discussion and Q&A

• András Kováts – Director, Menedék - Hungarian Association for Migrants
• Prof. Zoltán Balázs – Professor, Institute of Political Science, Corvinus University of Budapest
• Gabriella Gőbl – Activist

Moderator: András Szalai, Research Fellow, Center for EU Enlargement Studies

RSVP at goblg@ceu.edu