On Tuesday 4 September, Judith Sargentini MEP (Greens/EFA, Netherlands), the rapporteur on the rule of law situation in Hungary, told a group of journalists that she had "learnt in the press" that Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will be in Strasbourg on 11 September for the debate on her draft report that is to be put to the vote the following day.
This is symptomatic of the relationship the MEP has with the Hungarian government, which has always refused to discuss the content of her report with her, and with which she has no direct contact.
It is the conference of the presidents of the European Parliament groups that will decide, on Thursday 6 September, on the confirmation and modalities of this visit. A European Parliament source indicated on 4 September that Orbán's visit is presented as a personal initiative of the Hungarian leader, but one that should not be rejected.
Orbán has been invited to the European Parliament's debates on Hungary on several occasions and is thus again expected to be allowed to defend his vision of things.
Sargentini meanwhile said she expected a tight vote on her draft, which sets out a list of violations of the principle of the rule of law and calls on the EU Council to take action by launching an Article 7 procedure, like the one targetting Poland. The majority is "close" but not yet in the bag, she said.
Sargentini is regularly taken to task in Hungary by members of the government and is regularly attacked for conducting a "personal crusade" against the country, they say. She argues that she is completely objective and says that she wanted to establish very strict criteria for her report. The report is thus based only on the observations on intergovernmental organisations like the Council of Europe, while the reports of NGOs that have complicated relations with the Hungarian government have been set aside.
Sargentini does not know what follow-up will be given to her report if it is adopted in Strasbourg but has underlined that it is now up to the Council to respond (which tends to abdicate its responsibilities to the Commission). If the report is adopted, it will certainly be difficult to ignore the "political signal" it represents, Sargentini believes. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)