MEPs said on Thursday 17 November that Hungary’s measures to address identified Rule of law failures have not been implemented and that the EU Council must decide in December to suspend cohesion policy funds for Hungary.
The European Commission proposed on 18 September to trigger the first stage of the Regulation on a general conditionality regime for the protection of the EU budget against Hungary (see EUROPE 13036/16, 13022/23). The institution is proposing a suspension of 65% of commitments under three cohesion policy operational programmes, representing €7.5 billion or one third of the 2021-2027 structural funds planned for the country.
Budapest presented 17 measures to avoid this sanction (fight against corruption, tenders...)
The Council of the EU has until 19 December 2022 to decide on measures to protect the EU budget against violations of the Rule of law in Hungary (see EUROPE 13024/9).
The Commission was supposed to deliver its assessment of the Hungarian measures by 19 November, but it is expected to do so on Tuesday 22 November, unless it is postponed for a week. If the Commission considers that the Hungarian measures are sufficient, the procedure will stop and the EU Council will not even have to decide. However, MEPs do not believe in this scenario. The other possibilities are the confirmation of the proposed measures (suspension of €7.5 billion) or a change (relaxation) of the proposed measures.
The European Parliament’s rapporteurs, Petri Sarvamaa (EPP, Finnish) and Eider Gardiazabal Rubial (S&D, Spanish), called on the Commission to recognise that the risk to the EU budget persists and requested that the proposed measures against Hungary (suspension of funds) be adopted by the EU Council by a qualified majority.
According to Mr Sarvamaa, “it is now or never to have results and a test for the mechanism” through this Regulation. Hungary is making progress, he said, but the measures do not eradicate the risks to the EU budget. “This mechanism must not fail now, otherwise we will not be able to restart it”, he added.
Eider Gardiazabal Rubial said that, according to the analysis of the MEPs, “only two measures are adequate and only three have been implemented”. “The Commission must maintain the proposal to suspend the funds”, she said.
Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, German) regretted the lack of measures in the judicial field in Hungary (independence of judges, appointments to the Court of appeal, European Public Prosecutor’s Office...) and considered the measure on the creation of an integrity authority “inadequate”.
Moritz Körner (Renew Europe, German) criticised the “potential agreement” between the Commission and the Hungarian government on measures that would unlock billions of euros in EU funds. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)