The Court of Justice of the European Union rejected the Hungarian authorities’ appeal against the European Parliament’s resolution calling on the Council of the EU to find a clear risk of violation of fundamental European values in Hungary, in a judgment handed down on Thursday 3 June (Case C-650/18).
In September 2018, MEPs adopted the contested resolution (448 votes in favour, 197 against, 48 abstentions), triggering a procedure for respecting the Rule of law in Hungary under Article 7 of the EU Treaty (see EUROPE 12094/14). Since then, the General Affairs Council has held several discussions on this matter, including a specific hearing in September 2019 (see EUROPE 12328/1), but has not formally taken a position on the issue.
The Court finds, first, that the contested resolution is subject to judicial review under Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU). Furthermore, under Article 269 TFEU, any appeal against such a resolution may only be lodged by the Member State, which is the subject of the resolution and must relate solely to the breach of the procedural rules.
The European Parliament’s resolution is also, according to the Court, a contestable act that produces binding legal effects as soon as it is adopted. As long as the Council has not decided on the follow-up to the procedure, the immediate effect of this resolution is to lift the prohibition on the Member States considering an asylum application by a Hungarian national (Protocol 24 on the right to asylum for European citizens).
On the merits, the European Court observes that the notion of “votes cast” (Article 354 TFEU, which lays down the voting arrangements for the application of Article 7) is not defined and must be interpreted in line with its usual meaning in everyday language, i.e., that it encompasses only the manifestation of a positive or negative vote on a given proposal. Abstention, which is understood as the refusal to take a position, cannot be equated with a vote cast.
Article 354 also requires that a majority of the Members of the European Parliament must approve European Parliament acts. As such, abstentions are taken into account, the Court notes.
Finally, it considers that excluding abstentions from the counting of votes cast is not contrary to democracy or equal treatment. MEPs who abstained from the vote on the resolution had been informed in advance that abstentions would not be counted in the calculation of the votes cast. “Today’s judgment proves once again that the European Parliament was right to react to the European Commission’s inaction. [It] clearly shows that the Commission is not the only guardian of the Treaties and that, when European values are under serious threat, the Parliament can and must act”, said Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA, France), the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Hungary. She urged the Council of the EU to “assume its responsibility as protector of the Rule of law and take action against Hungary”.
Read the judgment: https://bit.ly/3wSpnYr (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)