The European Parliament once again urged the European Commission to apply without delay the rules making the allocation of European funds conditional on respect for the Rule of law, by adopting (with 529 votes in favour, 150 against and 14 abstentions), on Thursday 8 July in Strasbourg, a report on the guidelines concerning this text (see EUROPE 12756/3).
Concluding a plenary session in Strasbourg largely devoted to issues of respect for democratic values in Europe, MEPs again called on the Commission to act “as soon as possible” on breaches of the Rule of law by hitting the offending countries in the wallet.
MEPs regret that the European Commission has decided to comply with the non-binding conclusions of the European Council of December 2020, and to delay the application of the Regulation on conditionality for the protection of the EU budget by drawing up guidelines for its application.
In particular, the European Parliament calls on the Commission to report to the Parliament “regularly and proactively, at least twice a year, on new and ongoing investigations, starting as soon as possible with the first cases”.
MEPs criticise the Commission for having missed the deadline set by Parliament to implement the regulation and adopt the guidelines by 1 June 2021. They welcome the letter of 23 June from the President of the European Parliament stating that if the Commission fails to respond within the time limits set out in the Treaties, the European Parliament will bring an action before the Court of Justice. They argue that the Parliament should continue to make the necessary preparations to sue the Commission for inaction, under Article 265 TFEU.
On the other hand, legal scholars Kim Scheppele (Princeton University), Daniel Kelemen (Rutgers University) and John Morijn (University of Groningen) argue that the glaring deficiencies of the Rule of law in Hungary meet the requirements to activate the Rule of law mechanism.
Link to the legal analysis: https://bit.ly/3dW0VhM (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)