On the evening of Wednesday 10 April, MEPs debated the state of the rule of law in Hungary and the conditionality of European funds, following the Commission’s decision in December to release more than €10 billion to Budapest. The European Parliament has since taken legal action to overturn this decision (see EUROPE 13369/10).
During the debate, a number of MEPs, such as Isabel Wiseler-Lima of the Luxembourg EPP and Nikolaj Villumsen of the Danish Left, continued to believe that Viktor Orbán’s Hungary could not receive this windfall of money, as it had introduced insufficient measures and continued to “violate fundamental rights and common values“, said the Dane.
“The measures taken are clearly just window-dressing and therefore ineffective and not producing the expected results”, said the Luxembourger. “And, there’s the creation of an authority for the defence of sovereignty, which allows the Hungarian state to use a so-called anti-foreign influence law to gag any government opposition”, she added.
“The Hungarian government has moved even further towards a Putin-like future. A Russia-inspired law has been introduced, this time ostensibly to protect national sovereignty; anything that can be considered as undermining Hungary’s sovereignty is considered a crime and punishable under criminal law. It’s a fairly vague concept, which can make anyone a suspect in Hungary”, also commented French MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield (Greens/EFA). “Once again, civil society, activists, journalists and political opponents are under threat”, she added.
“Nearly €11 billion have been released”, but “it is clear that the judiciary’s independence and judicial problems continue to exist”, commented German MEP Monika Hohlmeier (EPP).
Hungary “must implement a complete series of essential institutional reforms before payments can be authorised by the Commission. These reforms address a number of concerns relating to the rule of law and also serve to protect the Union’s financial interests. To date, Hungary has only received the pre-financing amount. We also note that Hungary has introduced legislative measures to implement some of the reforms requested, which we welcome”, explained beforehand Mathieu Michel, Belgian Secretary of State for Digitisation, pointing out that Hungary will be the subject of a new Article 7 hearing on 25 June.
For his part, the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, defended the Commission’s decision and added that the Article 7 procedure would be open against Hungary for as long as necessary.
The Commission “has kept Parliament constantly informed of developments in the process and has acted in full compliance with European law. And it will defend this December decision before the courts”.
The elected representatives will vote on a resolution at the April plenary session. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)