Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties adopted by 54 votes to 11 with 1 abstention, on Wednesday 20 April, the own-initiative report by Terry Reintke (Greens/EFA, Germany) on the Commission’s 2021 annual report on the state of the Rule of law in the EU27.
The report highlights the usefulness of the Commission’s work, which will include recommendations to countries in its third edition in 2022, but improvements are needed.
In particular, MEPs regret that, despite the Parliament’s criticism, “the Commission has still not broadened the scope of its reports to cover all Article 2 values”, that it still does not distinguish between systemic and individual violations, and that it does not carry out a more thorough and transparent assessment, including taking measures in response to violations, says a European Parliament press release.
For the Commission’s annual reports to become fully effective, the Parliament also calls for a move away from “descriptive documentation” to identify more cross-cutting trends and systemic vulnerabilities.
“Greater methodological clarity, better stakeholder involvement and increased EU resources allocated to this task” are also required. A direct link should also be established between the conclusions of the annual report and the activation of correction mechanisms such as Article 7, budgetary conditionality and infringement procedures.
The report also calls for the creation of a quantitative Rule of law index, based on an assessment of Member States’ performance.
The report regrets as well that the Commission’s work “does not clearly recognise the deliberate process of rolling back the Rule of law in Poland and Hungary”.
The report was adopted as the committee heard again from Commissioner Didier Reynders on 20 April on the specific situation in Hungary and the abuse of LGBTIQ rights.
In particular, the MEPs came back to the referendum of 3 April on the risks of promoting LGBTIQ people in Hungarian schools, which was finally invalidated for lack of sufficient participation.
The Commissioner had to assure MEPs again that the Commission is not weakening on this issue, as many infringements are already open against the country, including on the Child Protection Act, which is seen as a disguised attack on the rights of LGBTIQ people. The conditionality mechanism is also activated against the country.
“It is not because you have a majority in parliament that you can decide by majority to discriminate against minorities”, the Commissioner said, arguing that going to the Court of Justice remains one of the best tools to ensure that the rule of law is respected.
Visits to Hungary will soon take place, including to the Ministry of Justice, to prepare the next annual report, Mr Reynders added.
Link to the report: https://aeur.eu/f/1ap (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)