Several political groups in the European Parliament are expecting a firm reaction from the EU on the situation in Hungary and, like the S&D group, are expected to ask the Conference of Group Presidents on Thursday 2 April to put the issue on the agenda of the next plenary session, scheduled in theory for 16 April.
The S&D group and its chairwoman, Iratxe García, were expected to propose a debate on Hungary, but were not yet sure whether to ask for a specific resolution on the subject. The Greens/EFA group was also wondering on Wednesday 1 April what action to take on this issue, as French MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield is already rapporteur on the Article 7 procedure against Hungary.
The EPP, on the other hand, would rather support a more general debate on all the emergency measures implemented in the EU which are also problematic for the rule of law in some places.
Polish EPP MEPs, like former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, are therefore concerned about the action of the PiS government, which has maintained the presidential election of 10 May while having, through special measures in response to the coronavirus, made the campaign impossible to conduct, which would benefit the incumbent President, Andrzej Duda. However, it was not yet certain on Wednesday that the Polish case would also be discussed in the Conference of Presidents.
On 1 April, the College of Commissioners again discussed the emergency measures relating to COVID-19 taken in the Member States, including the Hungarian law on the state of danger, which allows Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to govern by decree for the duration of the health crisis. The emergency law also allows imprisonment for spreading ‘false information’.
The College referred to all the measures taken in the Member States and will analyse the situation very closely, the institution reiterated. Ursula von der Leyen reacted on Tuesday to the Hungarian case (see EUROPE 12458/24), and the institution did not go any further on Wednesday.
According to Hungarian media, the full powers given to the Prime Minister had in any case already had a very concrete consequence on 1 April: that of having taken a new measure aimed at regulating, if not restricting, the powers of mayors during this coronavirus crisis.
For his part, the Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean Asselborn, asked on the same day to deprive Hungary of its voting rights in the EU Council from now on.
New case of consciousness in the EPP
Will the European People’s Party (EPP) have to reconsider earlier than expected its decision not to exclude Viktor Orbán's Fidesz from its family?
While it had been decided in early February, due to a lack of sufficient majority, to maintain the suspension of the party as agreed in March 2019 (see EUROPE 12218/8) and to review the ‘Orbán’ case in early 2021 at a forthcoming political assembly, the leader of the EPP, Donald Tusk, hinted on 1 April that this reconsideration could come back sooner than expected. Without, however, giving a timetable or making it a top priority for the centre-right family.
In a general letter on the current crisis as seen by EUROPE, the Pole thus indicated at the end that, if the fight against COVID-19 was to concentrate all energies and remain the top priority, “the time will soon come when it will be necessary to reconsider” this decision concerning the Hungarian party.
Although Mr Tusk writes that EPP members currently have “much more important things on their minds”, he seems to be reopening the debate on the fate of Fidesz after several member parties, including the Finns, Luxembourgers and also Germans, had argued for expulsion.
In a tweet, the President of the EPP finally expressed himself a little more clearly on the new Hungarian emergency law adopted on 30 March, in any case. “Making use of the pandemic to build a permanent state of emergency is politically dangerous, and morally unacceptable”, he wrote on Wednesday.
Link to the EPP letter: https://bit.ly/3aCPIir (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)