The Hungarian government is likely trying to curry favour with Poland’s PiS party by granting asylum to former government figures facing trial at home. But a change of government in Hungary in April could send these political fugitives packing.

By Edit Inotai and Ada Petriczko

Hungary is slowly but surely turning itself into a political refuge for former politicians under investigation in their home countries. The latest is Poland’s ultraconservative former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who announced on X on Monday that Hungary had granted him and his wife refugee status.

“I have decided to stay outside Poland until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored,” he wrote on X, arguing that he would otherwise be silenced and unable to defend himself against what he described as a politically driven campaign.

Ziobro faces 26 criminal charges related to the alleged misuse of approximately 150 million zloty (35 million euros) from the Justice Fund – a state program intended to support victims of crime – during the Law and Justice (PiS) party’s last stint in government (2015-2023).

Prosecutors in Poland have accused him of abuse of power, exceeding his authority, and founding and directing an organised crime group. Among the allegations is the claim that Ziobro authorised the purchase of the Israeli-made Pegasus spyware with money from the fund, allegedly to spy on political opponents. If convicted, Ziobro could face up to 25 years in jail. Ziobro denies all the charges.

The response from the current Polish government to Hungary’s decision was swift. Justice Minister Waldemar Zurek called Hungary’s decision “unacceptable”, describing it “as deeply troubling to watch a former Polish justice minister flee under the protection of a loyal ally of Vladimir Putin, at a time when Ukrainian residential neighbourhoods are once again being pounded by bombs and missiles,” Zurek wrote on X.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk responded with irony. “The former Minister of Justice(!), the architect of the political corruption system, has applied for political asylum from Viktor Orban,” he wrote. “A logical choice.”

And Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a former anti-communist dissident, drew a sharper contrast: “I fled communism; you are fleeing a Polish prosecutor and court – which you yourself reformed,” he said,

‘Little Poland’ in Hungary

Ziobro is not the first Polish official to seek protection abroad: his former state secretary, Marcin Romanowski, received refugee status in Hungary in 2024 and has since been employed by the Orban government-linked Centre for Fundamental Rights, where he heads the Institute for Polish-Hungarian Freedom.

Before then, Hungary made international headlines for helping the former prime minister of North Macedonia, Nikola Gruevski, flee his country in 2018, apparently transporting him across the Balkans in diplomatic vehicles, before granting him political asylum in Budapest.

Granting political asylum to citizens of another EU member state is, however, almost without precedent, as it implies that the judiciary is not independent and a fair trial cannot be guaranteed in that country. This is precisely the message the Hungarian government is trying to send, say observers.

“Orban is constructing a narrative claiming that the rule of law is under attack in Poland and that former government members are being politically persecuted,” Daniel Bartha, president of the Budapest-based Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy (CEID), tells BIRN.

“Beyond doing a favour to PiS, this is also part of a broader attack against the European Union, which – according to Orban – applies double standards for not launching rule-of-law procedures against Poland. So, one of his purposes is actually to undermine the EU itself,” he explains.

Orban’s foreign policy calculus goes well beyond just irritating Prime Minister Tusk, his former political ally-turned adversary. Hungarian government-aligned institutions such as the Nezopont Institute, the Centre for Fundamental Rights, and the Orban-linked Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) network regularly comment on Polish domestic politics, accusing the Tusk government of undermining the rule of law and weaponizing the courts against political opponents. These institutions maintain close ties not only with Poland’s conservative legal group Ordo Iuris, but also with the US-based Heritage Foundation, and are actively promoting narratives about Europe’s alleged decline and the silencing of conservative voices.

“Granting political asylum to Ziobro is a clear intervention in Polish domestic politics, which is paradoxical for a government that so loudly champions national sovereignty,” points out Geza Jeszenszky, a former Hungarian foreign minister and ambassador to the US.

Jeszenszky likens Hungary’s actions to Russian cyber operations in Europe, calling them a “subversive operation”. According to him, the Orban government is effectively gambling all its political capital on PiS returning to power in Poland, hoping this would revive cooperation between the Visegrad Group (V4) of Central European states, solidarity between which has been shattered by the war in Ukraine.

“What Budapest consistently underestimates,” Jeszenszky explains, “is how much relations between [Orban’s] Fidesz and PiS have deteriorated since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Any genuine improvement would require Hungary to abandon its pro-Russian stance.”

Instead, Orban appears to be attempting to win PiS’s favour through short-term political gestures, including offering asylum to some of its most controversial figures.

The problem is that Ziobro’s escape to Hungary does not appear to have won much support in Poland. A recent poll shows 64 per cent of respondents view the former justice minister’s decision negatively, with nearly half describing it as “definitely wrong”.

Polish President Karol Nawrocki, an ally of PiS, said in a December video interview he believed Ziobro could not expect a fair trial at home, arguing that some allegations were detached from reality. Nevertheless, he admitted that his leaving the country would be a “troubling” step.

Veteran PiS party politician Ryszard Terlecki also acknowledged that the affair was politically damaging. “Does this sink PiS? I think it does,” he told reporters.

The former PiS prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who has not been charged but faces allegations in a separate case, rejected outright the idea of him claiming asylum in a foreign country. “Let them put me on trial here if they want to – even if there is a risk of arrest,” he said.

However, others may decide to follow Ziobro into exile. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that “several” Polish citizens have already applied for asylum, though no additional names were confirmed. Polish media speculation has focused on Daniel Obajtek, the former CEO of state-owned energy company Orlen and now a PiS MEP, who’s under investigation for allegedly using company resources to spy on political opponents.

Obajtek has close ties to Hungary, where he received a lucrative position linked to Orban-aligned business circles after PiS lost power in 2023, and previously oversaw the sale of part of Poland’s Lotos refinery to a Hungarian firm on favourable terms.

How long will the welcome mat be out

Yet Hungary’s political hospitality may prove short-lived. While EU law does not formally prohibit granting asylum to citizens of another member state, doing so requires exceptionally strong justification.

“The asylum process itself and the exact legal status of Ziobro and his wife remain highly opaque,” Andras Lederer of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights watchdog, tells BIRN.

Under Hungarian asylum law, the responsible minister – in this case the interior minister – may grant asylum “even if the applicant does not meet all statutory conditions.” But this discretionary asylum may not be accepted by other member states, so Ziobro is most probably stuck in Hungary and cannot leave without risking arrest elsewhere.

The application procedure used is also raising questions: according to current Hungarian law, asylum seekers must first submit their application at a Hungarian embassy, either in Belgrade or Kyiv. Lodging asylum applications in Hungary is not legally possible.

Hungary’s opposition Tisza party has already announced that if it defeats Fidesz in the April 12 general election, it will revoke the political asylum granted to foreign politicians.

“Under a Tisza government, Hungary will not be a safe haven for foreign criminals,” the party responded in a request for comment by Telex.hu.

The foreign policy analyst Bartha said that “restoring bilateral relations and rebuilding cooperation with Poland would require this step” from a new Tisza government.

While asylum status is ordinarily reviewed every three years, a new government would have the legal tools to initiate an extraordinary review to determine whether the conditions for political asylum are still being met. “It all depends on how strictly Tisza interprets the rule of law,” Lederer explains.

With opinion polls currently predicting a Tisza victory, Polish politicians – and the former prime minister of North Macedonia – may be advised to start looking for safe havens other than Hungary.