“See you in court,” several MEPs warned the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, yesterday, outraged that she has unlocked 10.2 billion euros in community aid destined for Hungary as a result of its latest judicial reforms. Said and done: the European Parliament has just asked its Legal Affairs committee to initiate the procedures to denounce the decision before the Court of Justice of the European Union. “The Union cannot in any way give in to blackmail and merchant with its strategic interests and those of its allies, renouncing its values,” criticizes the resolution, approved by 345 votes in favor, 104 against and 29 abstentions.
If the legal services of the European Parliament conclude that the possible complaint of the decision on aid to Hungary has a legal basis and that its arguments are supported by the community justice, the institution would then denounce the Commission itself for “failing to comply with its work as guardian of the treaties and protect the financial interests of the Union,” warns the resolution, which warns that it will use “any of the legal and political measures at its disposal” if the Commission delivers new funds to Budapest “without compliance with the criteria”. The trigger for the clash between the European Parliament and the European Commission has been on this occasion the decision, adopted in December, to unfreeze part of the aid from the cohesion fund destined for Hungary in response to the judicial reforms on how to act before the Government of the ultraconservative Viktor Orbánhis parliament adopted last May.
“Hungary has complied. Those are the rules that we have all agreed upon and we will follow them. It is what differentiates the rule of law from the arbitrary exercise of power,” Von der Leyen defended herself yesterday during the tense parliamentary debate held in Strasbourg in which He recalled that there are another 20 billion euros frozen due to the application of different mechanisms to defend the rule of law in the EU. That the popular German left the chamber before the end to travel to Switzerland, delegating her reply to a vice president, only warmed the spirits of the MEPs, who accuse Brussels of having given in to Orbán to try to prevent – without success – – to veto the approval of new aid to Ukraine. “Paying Orbán for lifting his veto is not
The European Parliament disagrees and maintains that the changes adopted by the Hungarian Parliament to ensure judicial independence are merely cosmetic. The reforms have not been subjected to “neither adequate parliamentary control nor public consultation” and “do not review the recent political appointments at the highest levels of the country’s judicial system”, maintains the European Parliament, which demands the Council to fully apply the Article 7 of the EU treaty – activated by MEPs, not governments – to defend the rule of law and determine whether Hungary is violating it. The procedure could lead to the withdrawal of Hungary’s voting rights but the Council, where until recently Orbán had the firm support of Poland, which would have stopped the decision, has until now been reluctant to take the step.
The MEPs reiterate that “over the last decade, Hungary has become a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” and the rule of law has deteriorated “as a consequence of the systematic actions of its government.” he situation of various vulnerable groups such as “women, LGBTIQ people, gypsies, migrants, asylum seekers and refugees” has deteriorated considerably, without institutions being able to protect them, regrets the resolution that recalls that ” “The absence of the rule of law has led to the control of both public and private media and the constant abuse of the already lax labor legislation by the Government as well as the degradation of the environment.” Just today, Orbán’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, reiterated that his government would not reform any of its laws relating to homosexuals or asylum in response to pressure from Brussels to unlock funds as this would go “against the will” of the voters.
In their resolution, MEPs “condemn” Orbán’s decision to block multi-year financial aid to Ukraine at the European Council summit in December, actions “in total non-compliance and violation of the strategic interests of the Union” that “violate the principle of loyal cooperation enshrined in the Treaties”, and they also reiterate the urgency that the extraordinary summit on February 1 be able to give the green light to this financing. It so happens that, on July 1, Hungary will assume the rotating presidency of the Council of the Union, in response to which Parliament “wonders whether the Hungarian Government will be able to fulfill this task credibly” and asks the Twenty-seven to “formulate appropriate solutions to mitigate these risks as soon as possible.”
