By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The United States imposed restrictions for Hungarian passport holders under its Visa Waiver Program on Tuesday, saying Budapest has not addressed security vulnerabilities repeatedly raised by Washington.
Relations between the two governments have been burdened recently with Budapest’s delay of a parliament vote on Sweden’s NATO accession and curbs on LGBTQ rights by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government.
In a statement, the U.S. embassy in Budapest said the validity period offered to Hungarians under the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) will be immediately reduced from two years to one year, and that only single visits will be allowed under the system and not multiple visits.
Hungary granted citizenship to about one million people between 2011 and 2020 – mostly ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring states – “without adequate security measures in place to verify their identities”, the U.S. embassy said.
The citizenship grants were a political move by Orban that earned him votes in subsequent elections.
A senior U.S. government official said the modifications did not apply to any of the other 39 participants in the Visa Waiver Program and were “unique to Hungary”.
“There’s a systemic problem, which is hundreds of thousands of passports were issued between 2011 and 2020 without identity verification requirements in place,” the official said.
When asked if the measure was related to other issues that caused frictions between the two governments, the official said: “The United States is paying close attention to Hungary’s choices,” adding, though, that the step should not be interpreted as a message about other issues.
The official said the security vulnerabilities in Hungary had been identified well before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The restrictions were put in place a day after Orban’s ruling Fidesz party boycotted a parliament session called by opposition parties to vote on Sweden’s NATO bid. The vote was not held in the end.
Sweden applied last year to join NATO after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but objections from Turkey and Hungary have delayed its bid.
In 2014, the United States banned six Hungarians from entering the U.S. as a warning to Orban’s previous government to reverse policies that threatened to undermine democratic values.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Tom Hogue)
