Dr. József László
director of the Bálint György Journalist Academy in Budapest
Beatrix Csaba
Latvijas Mediji
At the end of February and the beginning of March 2022, in the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Ukrainian refugees appeared in Budapest as well.
It was an emergency: crowded trains arrived at one of the city’s major railway stations, and next to the station, under chaotic circumstances, civil society groups tried to help—finding beds or rides for exhausted, desperate people. Within two weeks, we ourselves hosted and fed four families. Among them were ethnic Hungarians from Transcarpathia, people from Kyiv and its outskirts, and one mother with her daughter who came from near Kharkiv. They rested and moved on—to relatives and friends. One person flew to Portugal to be with family; her husband took a train to Croatia, where he had worked before. The family from Kharkiv headed to Poland; another family went to Germany; and some stayed in Hungary to work.
There is a flight corridor above our house, and the sound of planes landing and taking off is fairly frequent. An elderly ukrainian engineer complained that he wakes up every night when he hears the roar. “You know… the bombs, the bombers,” he said. I understood; I felt terribly sorry—and secretly hoped we would not share a similar fate.
Hungary became both a transit country for hundreds of thousands of refugees and, for many, a temporary home. Three and a half years later, the “crisis mode” has run its course—but the questions remain: who stays, who can stay, how do they live, how do they access services—and what happens to their children? What follows brings field stories—of pregnant women, young mothers, and Roma families from Transcarpathia—together with recent data and political-legal developments.
Hungary’s picture is mixed. UNHCR’s 2024 report and 2025 programme plan show a shift from emergency crisis response to integration support—legal aid, mental-health services, labour-market and language assistance—while humanitarian funding has visibly shrunk.
An IOM survey early in 2024 revealed: the longer refugees live in Hungary, the closer their ties with local communities (56% among those under one year; 81% after two years). Yet linguistic and labour-market barriers remain stubborn.
Two Hungaries: Rights on Paper, Barriers at the Counter
Field experience—especially among pregnant women, mothers of small children, and Roma families arriving from deep poverty—shows the same pattern: a wide gap between formal access to services and actual use. In cases assisted by the EMMA Association, almost every step — prenatal and gynecological care, hospital appointments, interpretation, health-insurance registration, birth certificates, maternity benefits — can collapse over a single missing document, an unfamiliar procedure, or a wrongly booked appointment.
For dual Ukrainian-Hungarian citizens, the “in-between status” creates even more confusion: no refugee ID number, no clear entitlement—bureaucracy slows down, and access becomes uncertain.
So-called case management—escorting to clinics, involving an interpreter, handling paperwork, or ensuring a doula at birth—is not an “extra service” but the bare minimum of equal opportunity. When this work stops for lack of funding, the most vulnerable are left alone.
Housing: The Tightening Bottleneck
Housing remains the hardest issue. From August 21, 2024, a government decree limited state-funded accommodation to refugees arriving from regions officially designated as “war-affected” in Ukraine. Civil reports suggest this excluded roughly 3,000 people—mostly women and children—from the safety net. UNHCR publicly expressed concern over the stricter criteria.
The consequences are tangible: those pushed out of state shelters face an expensive, often distrustful rental market without stable income, credit history, or the social network needed to survive the first months.
Shelters are typically located far from job centres, trapping would-be workers: with multi-hour, costly commutes, even the lowest-paid jobs become unreachable.
Work and Language: A Locked Door from Both Sides
Language and employment are the twin keys to integration—but neither turns easily. Lack of Hungarian skills, non-recognised qualifications, and unresolved childcare all block entry.
Women with limited education, poor Hungarian or English, and young children often find only precarious, underpaid, “invisible” jobs.
For Roma families from Transcarpathia the burden is heavier: discrimination, unstable housing, and lack of work reinforce one another. Low schooling narrows access to legal jobs; commuting time and cost consume wages; men work away from home; women remain alone with the children—without institutional or community support.
Health Care and Registration: An Obstacle Course with a Stroller
Even in peacetime, navigating maternity care—midwives, gynecologists, lab tests, maternity wards, civil registries, and Ukrainian consular involvement for the baby’s citizenship—is complex.
With refugee status, it becomes an administrative minefield: misunderstood eligibility rules, missing interpretation, no registered address—and the calendar collapses.
Field workers stress: personal accompaniment and advocacy are not “added value” but conditions for a functioning system—especially where language barriers are high.
Children: The Gauge of Integration
School is the litmus test of integration. Where there is language tutoring, attentive after-school care, and working communication with parents, children pull their families forward: they make friends, accelerate language learning, and impose rhythm on daily life.
Where there isn’t, absenteeism, school failure, and household tension arrive fast. Missing administrative prerequisites for child-protection rights—health-insurance or address registration—hit the most vulnerable hardest.
UNHCR openly warns: funding cuts harm both quality and continuity of services.
In practice this means fewer caseworkers, less presence, fewer interpreters and legal-aid hours—a safety net full of holes.
EU-level extensions bring legal certainty, yet daily “overheads”—rent, transport, food, childcare—require local solutions.
As civil-society capacity wanes, the state should step in: provide language education, job-entry schemes, rent-support programmes. Without these, rights remain only on paper.
What Works—and What Needs Acceleration?
Language + work together. Language classes alone fail without practice, mentored employment, and flexible childcare. Effective programmes combine all three
Rental bridges. Those moving from shelters to private flats need targeted aid—deposit guarantees, utility subsidies, housing mentorship. After the 2024 restrictions, this is urgent.
“Fast track” for births and health care. A standardised, interpreter-supported protocol in maternity and registration services would lift the heaviest burdens off new mothers.
Targeted Roma support. Anti-discrimination rules in housing, education, and employment must work in practice, not just on paper.
State-civil partnership. As humanitarian funds shrink, the state must secure the minimum floor; without NGOs’ local expertise, integration will stall.
Looking Ahead to 2026–2027
Across Europe, donor attention is fading while the housing crisis—two million destroyed or damaged homes in Ukraine—keeps displacement alive. In Hungary, the effects of the 2024 restrictions will linger for years. The question is whether missing state shelters can be replaced by rental and labour-market “bridges.”
The good news: the EU-level extension buys time. The bad: time alone solves nothing. The next two years will decide whether “the right to stay” comes with a real chance to belong—through language, stable housing, decent work, and school success.
Epilogue: From Survival to Life
For most refugees, life is paperwork: appointments, midwives, insurance cards, rental contracts, job offers, school enrollments. If the system doesn’t accompany them through these, they vanish inside it.
Civil-society presence—the invisible logistics built by many organisations—was the engine making that path navigable. When the fuel runs out, the car stops, even if the driver technically still has a licence.
The story is both Hungarian and European. The EU has granted the right to stay until 2027—but in Budapest and provincial towns it will be decided whether that right becomes a life worth living. Survival is not a goal, only a condition. Life begins where rights meet access, income, language, and human dignity.
