A new wave of protests against the emergency measures taken in Hungary took place over the weekend, with several high-ranking politicians, including Jean-Claude Juncker, as well as MEPs and parties, taking a stand.
They are all calling on the Commission and the Council of the EU to take action and demanding sanctions in response to the emergency law adopted by the Orbán government.
In an op-ed published over the weekend, several MEPs led by Fabienne Keller (Renew Europe, France) called on the Commission, in the case of Hungary as well as Poland, “to establish general principles at the European level for regulating exceptional laws in times of crisis. These principles could be proposed for signature by the Member States and subsequently incorporated into the European treaties”.
They are also calling for “each emergency law to be accompanied by a ‘self-destruction’ clause, which provides that it must cease to apply automatically after a certain predetermined period (e.g. one year) and that its provisions of an exceptional nature must all be repealed at the same time”.
In a petition, the President of the liberal ALDE party, Hans van Baalen, called on the Commission and the Council of the EU to condemn this Hungarian law and to set up a binding mechanism for monitoring the Rule of law led by the Commission, the EU Council and the European Parliament. The president made his request in a letter to both institutions.
Finally, the op-ed to which the former President of the Commission lent his name, along with other former officials including former Commissioner Lazlo Andor, also calls on European institutions and civil society to denounce and sanction the “situation in Hungary”, about which they say they are “extremely concerned”.
These political leaders and intellectuals, gathered in this case under the aegis of the CIVICO Europa think tank, went so far as to say that these actions constitute an “emergency, if we want to avoid infecting other countries”.
Link to the ALDE letter: https://bit.ly/2XXbc