This article scrutinizes the securitization of migrants in Hungary and Slovakia at the height of the EU’s migration ‘crisis’. It illustrates how political narratives portrayed migrants as a security threat and how they intersected with EU discourse and practice. I demonstrate how the logic of securitization was deployed by both governments for domestic political gains. I show that both prime ministers focused on ‘civilizational’ threats or alleged threats to their respective cultures along with economic insecurity, and physical threats they would allegedly create through, inter alia, ‘terrorist’ activities. Their ostensible intentions were to protect the economic, societal and human security of Hungarians and Slovaks, whilst ignoring the (in)security of migrants, and essentially using the ‘crisis’ to gain electoral support for their waning politics. This prioritization contradicted EU policy, thwarting the development of common practice. The securitization used to justify the two governments’ policies and practices raises further questions about EU order and governance including about what are commonly claimed to be EU values.

本文仔细研究了在欧盟移民“危机”最严重时匈牙利和斯洛伐克的移民安全化。它说明了政治叙事如何将移民描述为安全威胁，以及他们如何与欧盟的话语和实践相交。我展示了两国政府如何运用证券化的逻辑来获取国内政治利益。我表明，两位总理都专注于对各自文化的“文明”威胁或所谓的威胁以及经济不安全和据称他们会通过以下方式制造的人身威胁，其中包括：“恐怖主义”活动。他们的表面上的意图是保护匈牙利人和斯洛伐克的经济，社会和人类安全，而忽略了移民的（in）安全，基本上使用“危机”来获取对其日常政治的选举支持。这种优先排序与欧盟政策相矛盾，阻碍了普遍做法的发展。用于证明两国政府政策和做法合理性的证券化引发了关于欧盟秩序和治理的进一步问题，包括通常声称的欧盟价值观。