An institutional clash looms between the European Commission and the European Parliament due to the undermining of the rule of law in Hungary. The European Parliament is preparing to take the Union Executive before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) for unfreezing the delivery of 10.2 billion euros of European funds to Budapest. This amount represents a substantial part of the structural fund programs that were withheld from the country, understanding that it had complied with some of the reforms that were requested of it to repair some of the damage inflicted on justice. A large majority of MEPs “regret and reaffirm their deep concern about this decision to consider that […] with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU with regard to judicial independence,” states a motion approved by 345 votes in favor, 104 against and 29 abstentions. The initiative adopted this Thursday instructs the parliamentary Legal Affairs Committee to analyze “the legality of the decision” and if it concludes that it is illegal, to file a complaint with the CJEU.
The complaint comes because parliamentarians understand that “the deterioration of democracy” in Hungary continues and the Government of the ultra-conservative Viktor Orbán has undermined European values in his country. The European Parliament and the Magyar Executive maintain a deep confrontation. It was the MEPs who launched years ago the sanctioning procedure against Hungary that could end with the suspension of the country’s right to vote in the Council of the EU, for having undermined judicial independence, not fighting corruption or violating rights of minorities, such as LGBTI. However, the Member States, which are the ones who have the power to press this nuclear button, do not take the step, despite the fact that the radical populist often blocks decisions that the Twenty-Seven have to take unanimously and their closeness to the Russian autocrat, Vladimir Putin.
For this reason, in the resolution, the parliamentarians “deeply regret the failure of the Council [de la UE] to achieve significant progress” in the sanctioning procedure that they launched in 2018. The text even demands that “the European Council and the Member States take measures and determine whether Hungary has committed serious and persistent violations of EU values with pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 2, of the TEU (Treaty on European Union)”, one of the steps in the process that can lead to the suspension of the voting rights of the affected country, in this case Hungary.
The clashes between Orbán and the European Parliament have many chapters. This is one more, which has already been encountered the response of the ultra prime minister on the social network, formerly Twitter. “Liberal MEPs yesterday attacked Hungary once again,” he said in his first sentence, in relation to the debate held this Wednesday. Immediately afterwards he mixed his response with the blockade he maintains on the review of the European budget, which includes an allocation of 50 billion euros to finance Ukraine, a country invaded by Russia, its ally. In the past, the European Parliament has described Hungary as a “hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” and has accused it of not being a full democracy. He then claimed that, due to its repeated attacks on European values and the rule of law, Hungary should not be able to preside over the Council of the EU, something it must do in the second half of this year.
Precisely these attacks are the reason why Hungary still has some 21 billion euros corresponding to cohesion funds and the recovery plan frozen by the Executive of the Union and the Council of the EU. Until last December, the Commission had blocked all cohesion fund resources, some 22 billion, for not complying with the minimum standards of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. He specifically reproached him for having undermined the independence of justice, the attack on LGTBI minorities, the violation of the principle of academic freedom in universities and the deterioration of the right to asylum. After more than a year of negotiating between Brussels and Budapest, which has had to make several reforms, the Executive chaired by Ursula von der Leyen unlocked 10.2 billion last December of the part corresponding to judicial independence. However, Budapest still has pending changes to be able to access the other 10.8 billion cohesion funds plus about 10,000 more for the recovery plan and the RepowerEU program.
The Parliament resolution approved this Thursday affects only those 10.2 billion released last month. This is not the first time that the European Parliament has taken this step because of Hungary. He already gave it in 2021, when he demanded that Von der Leyen freeze money to the Ultra Government through the conditionality mechanism, a tool available to the Commission to stop the delivery of resources to a country when it detects that there is a risk to the budget. community, since one of Hungary’s most serious problems is its poor fight against corruption. The Commission finally activated the conditionality mechanism and there was no claim before the CJEU.
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