Hungary may seek to file a lawsuit against the European Union for border protection costs, Gergely Gulyás, Hungarian minister for the Prime Minister’s Office, announced this Thursday.

Gulyás claimed that Hungary spent the equivalent of 2 billion euros on Schengen Zone border protection without recompense from the European Union. The minister said that Hungary was prepared to bring suit against the European Union if it did not reimburse Budapest for the cost of protecting the Schengen borders. Gulyás stated that Hungary has a claim after the EC reimbursed other Schengen border states. The 1990 Schengen Agreement eliminates internal border controls among member states.

Hungary has been emboldened by a recent announcement from the German government that it would impose unilateral border controls to address irregular migration. Hungarian Prime Minister Orban has also threatened to provide free bus tickets to Brussels for migrants trying to enter the EU. EC spokeswoman Anitta Hipper responded to the plan, saying “This action, if carried out, would be in clear breach of the EU law, but also it would be in clear breach of the principle of sincere and loyal cooperation, but also of mutual trust.”

This comes as Budapest instructed its Minister for European Affairs, János Boka, to negotiate with the European Commission (EC) regarding a $200 million fine imposed in the case Commission v. Hungary in 2020. Hungary recently missed the September 4 deadline for paying the judgment. The EC issued a second payment demand to Hungary, setting the deadline for September 17 and threatened to deduct the payment order from Hungary’s allocated share of the EU budget.

The EU has been grappling with a migration crisis since at least 2015, largely caused by upheavals in the Middle East and Africa, and later by the Ukraine conflict. According to the EU Commission, there were 385,445 irregular border crossings in 2023, an 18 percent increase from 2022.