Introduction

The European integration process is the most important and positive development in the history of Europe. The relationship between the rich Western and poorer Eastern member countries is not undisturbed and harmonious, but it provides tremendous economic advantages from integration for both advanced and less-developed member countries. The agricultural sector and the peasant-farmer population in both the advanced and less-advanced member countries gained from the significant subsidies that the European Union (EU) paid for them. In certain periods, these subsidies constituted about 40 percent of the EU’s budget. The EU’s immigration policy met with the harshest possible resistance by Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic in 2015–16. These countries flatly rejected obeying the EU’s decision. The popularity of and the trust in the EU among the citizens of the member countries gradually hit rock bottom.