Brussels, 02/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - A negative, unfair report that will be passed by the Socialists, the Liberals and the Greens against Hungary. It was in such terms that Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had come to plead the cause of his government on the eve of the vote on the Rui Tavares report (Greens/EFA, Portugal), addressed MEPs meeting in Strasbourg on Tuesday afternoon. The report denounces failings in respect of rule of law in Hungary. It had already been adopted in the committee on civil liberties on 19 June. Without asking for Article 7 to be activated (which may go as far as suspending votes in Council), the report by the Portuguese national nonetheless evoked the possibility of submitting it to the conference of presidents if necessary and, among other things, called for a surveillance mechanism to be set in place on the Copenhagen criteria. That mechanism would verify that member states, once they have entered the EU, do indeed comply with the criteria on which they were assessed.
Orban believes the report goes too far, and he even accuses the European Parliament of seeking to place member states under its guardianship. Recalling his fight against the Soviet dictatorship, Orban hinted a warning to the EP against inquisitorial tendencies and even dictatorial tendencies. The report, he said, is a serious threat for the EU and not only for Hungary.
The prime minister said that setting arbitrary criteria and new procedures not found in the treaty is an extremely dangerous trend and he didn't want an EU that dictates to countries and uses double standards. Orban added that Hungary would remain a free country.
Speaking on behalf of the ALDE group, Guy Verhofstadt pointed out that the Venice Commission, in its opinion published on 14 June, had found 19 problems with the most recent revision of the Hungarian constitution (introduced on 11 March), three more than on the Commission's list, and the Venice Commission (part of the Council of Europe) had published an opinion drawn up by constitutional experts, not politicians. Joint leader of the Greens/EFA, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, was unhappy with Orban's direct comparison of the EP and the USSR, urging his counterparts to protest against talk of this type.
Taking a more measured approach, the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, had earlier tried to reconcile all sides, urging the MEPs to support the Tavares Report and defend common European rights and values, and talking about the wider European Union, where a new mechanism (still to be defined) will monitor any potential slippages in the future. (SP/transl.fl)