Complaints from Hungary and Poland about the European Commission’s constant focus on the rule of law situation in their respective countries led the European Commission to launch an unprecedented mechanism to assess the democratic quality of all the Union’s partners. “It’s about preventing problems and preventing them from getting worse,” the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, recalled yesterday at the presentation of the latest community report on the subject.
Three years after starting this exercise, a source of constant friction with European capitals, the conclusions of Brussels are devastating: if you take into account what your starting point was. While in all countries there are “specific issues” to resolve (for example, in Spain the independence of the judiciary) and reforms are being implemented as a result of contacts with national authorities, in Poland and Hungary, far from improving the quality of their democracies, what are detected are “systemic problems,” admitted Reynders. The problems, far from being resolved, have become “structural”.
The community examination has detected deficiencies in the four areas examined to determine the democratic health of the EU countries: judicial independence, freedom of the press, the fight against corruption and the system of checks and balances. Poland has 38 rulings from the EU Court of Justice on key issues that have not been applied, such as the reform of its Constitutional Court. Brussels has “serious concerns” about judicial independence and warns of the deterioration of the work environment for journalists. Regarding Hungary, investigated in particular for the lack of anti-corruption measures, the report points out the lack of response to the “risks of patronage, favoritism and nepotism at the highest level of public administration” that it observes in the country and warns of the excessive use by Viktor Orbán of the state of emergency to rule by decree.
The report approved yesterday by the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee goes further and states that Hungary has become a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”. “The lack of action by the EU has contributed to the demolition of the rule of law, democracy and human rights” in the country, the MEPs say. Both countries are subject to disciplinary procedures of various kinds but the Council has avoided applying the most drastic ones, which could lead to their voting rights being withdrawn, for fear of aggravating the situation.
The publication of the report coincides with a resurgence of tensions regarding aid from the European recovery fund launched as a result of the pandemic. Its collection is conditional on respect for the rule of law (it was one of the key conditions for agreeing on the plan) and the European Commission has blocked 15,500 million euros assigned to Hungary and 36,000 million corresponding to Poland. Now the two are in a hurry to collect, especially Budapest, beset by financial problems.
The recent approval by the college of commissioners of the Polish recovery plan, a way for President Ursula von der Leyen to reach out to Warsaw, was interpreted as the step prior to the payment of the first tranche of funds. Brussels insisted, however, that it would only do so when Poland complied with the latest European rulings on its Constitutional Court.
Yesterday, in a bad omen for the former communist country, he confirmed that “serious concerns remain about the independence of the Polish judicial system.” The Polish Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro, accused the community executive of wanting to overthrow his government. Hungary’s reaction to the finding that it had not resolved the Commission’s concerns about judicial independence and the fight against corruption was along the same lines. The contacts continue.
Since, for the first time, this report includes not only an X-ray of the situation country by country, but also recommendations on how to resolve the deficiencies detected, although they are not binding. “Within a year we will assess whether they have been met,” said Reynders, criticized by the European Parliament for not setting stricter deadlines for the adoption of reforms.
