Hungary and Poland remain the red lanterns of Europe in terms of democratic health.
The European Commission’s annual report on the situation of the rule of law in the Union, published yesterday, notes deficiencies of a “systemic nature” in both countries and notes that their governments, in the hands of ultra-conservative parties, are among the slowest to time to make the necessary reforms to correct the problems. The authoritarian drift in both countries has led the EU to freeze nearly 90,000 million in total European funds, both items from the cohesion fund and the recovery plan.
The chapter of the report dedicated to Poland is particularly negative and does not indicate any significant progress in any of the areas examined. The Commission misses measures to improve the independence of judicial investigations, especially in the field of corruption, as well as the independence of the Court of Auditors or the Public Prosecutor’s Office with respect to the Government. The report detects problems in the granting of licenses to the media, the rules on the integrity of political representatives or the control of lobbies.
Brussels pointed out some specific improvements in the situation of democracy in Hungary, generally in sectors related to the attempts of the Government of Viktor Orbán for the EU to allow them access to tens of billions of euros in community aid that has been frozen due to to problems in its rule of law. The Community Executive asks Budapest for more efforts to prosecute high-level corruption cases and measures to improve the independence of the media, but welcomes, for example, the measures adopted to reinforce the independence of the governing body of judges in the country Magyar.
The situation in Poland and Hungary “is slowly improving in some areas, specifically in those where the EC asks them to unfreeze their funds”, but “they are going backwards in all the others”, concluded the German MEP Daniel Freund (Greens ), very active in the supervisory work of the European Parliament with both countries. In this sense, the system “works” because without financial sanctions there would have been no changes in the judicial field, but “most of the reforms basically exist on paper,” says Freund, who calls on the Commission not to settle for the “homeopathic measures” that do not change the “authoritarian course” of both governments and do not give in to pressure to unblock access to European funds.
Beyond the situation in these two countries, or the criticism of Spain for not having followed its recommendations to unblock the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (see Policy section), the European Commission was relatively optimistic yesterday. “This report on the rule of law shows that there has not been a worsening or a radical setback in any Member State”, highlighted the vice president of the Community Executive, Vera Jourová, who qualified that nevertheless she will never be satisfied, because “there are still many things to improve”. Around 65% of the recommendations issued last year to the member states in parallel to the publication of their situation report have had a “total or partial” follow-up, she celebrated.
Developments in the rule of law situation in Romania and Bulgaria – especially in the field of anti-corruption and judicial independence – have led the European Commission to the conclusion that they no longer need to be under the guardianship system launched in 2007, when they joined the Union. Brussels, which advanced its intentions a few months ago, will now make official its proposal to the Council and the European Parliament to leave behind the cooperation and verification mechanism (MCV) created specifically for both countries. Bulgaria passed the final exam in 2019, but Romania did not achieve it until the end of 2022. From now on, the health of its democracies will be evaluated with the same instruments as for other countries.
