Drawing lessons from Viktor Orbán’s “autocratic reign“ in Hungary, on Tuesday 21 April the Greens/EFA Group in European Parliament submitted proposals aimed at “reinforcing [European] democracy“.
“We have to take action now to protect our democracy, so that no regime is able to undermine our fundamental rights and the Rule of law again” or “steal EU funds, block EU decisions and take away people’s rights”, said Dutch Bas Eickhout, co-chair of the group, in a statement.
The European Greens’ main demands are as follows: - put an end to national vetoes by revising the European Treaties; - reform the Treaty’s so-called ‘Article 7’ procedure governing respect for the Rule of law in a Member State in order to facilitate decision-making in the EU Council; - during negotiations on the EU’s post-2027 budget, strengthen the conditions for accessing all European funds in order to prevent a country that violates the EU’s fundamental values from spending European taxpayers’ money; - ensure that the European Commission is more proactive in referring cases to the Court of Justice of the European Union when basic European values are violated; - strengthen the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to ensure that no citizen is deprived of his or her rights, and that the Commission has a ‘toolbox’ enabling it to sanction countries that violate EU law and case law.
Speaking the day after Mr Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s parliamentary elections, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen advocated launching a debate on reducing the unanimity requirement for decision-making within the EU Council in certain areas of foreign policy. In her mind, it is not a question of revising the Treaties to change the decision-making procedures, but of acting consistently with the Treaty by using the 67 existing “passerelle” clauses (see EUROPE 12996/18).
See the Greens/EFA Group’s position: https://aeur.eu/f/lnk (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)