The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) debated on Wednesday 11 May the draft interim report by Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA, France) on the finding in Hungary of a clear risk of a serious breach of European values as set out in Article 7 of the Treaty.
This work aims to update the report carried by former Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini (Greens/EFA), which led the Parliament to launch the Article 7 procedure against Budapest in September 2018.
“The state of democracy and fundamental rights in Hungary has declined dramatically over the last 12 years, which we have discussed at length here”, Ms Delbos-Corfield said at the outset in a rather short discussion.
Her report stresses that “there is no need for unanimity in the Council either to identify a clear risk of a serious breach of Union’s values under Article 7(1) of the EU Treaty, or to address concrete recommendations to the Member States in question and provide deadlines for the implementation of those recommendations”.
The report thus reiterates its “call for the Council to do so, underlining that any further delay to such action would amount to a breach of the rule of law principle by the Council itself”.
It recalls that the Parliament’s concerns, formulated in its September 2018 decision, relate to the following factors in Hungary: the functioning of the constitutional and electoral system, the independence of the judiciary as well as other institutions and “the rights of judges, corruption and conflicts of interest, data protection and privacy, freedom of expression, academic freedom, freedom of religion or the right to equal treatment and the rights of persons belonging to minorities, including the Roma and Jewish people”.
“Taken together, the facts and trends mentioned in the Parliament’s resolutions represent a systemic threat to the values of Article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union and constitute a clear risk of a serious breach thereof”, the report says.
It further deplores that “the lack of decisive EU action has contributed to turning Hungary into hybrid regime of electoral autocracy”.
Welcoming the decision to trigger conditionality in the case of Hungary, “albeit after a long delay and a limited scope”, the report also calls on the Commission to refrain from approving the Hungarian economic recovery plan.
The French MEP’s report was welcomed by left-wing groups and Renew Europe, which said the EU had “tolerated for too long the democratic backsliding” in Hungary and “looked the other way” on suspicions of corruption, said Ramona Strugariu (Renew Europe, Romania).
The ID group, on the other hand, criticised the link made with the recovery plan.
Link to the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/1l9 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)