The European Commission pressures the country with the conditionality mechanism to solve its breaches of the rule of law
Threats continue to mark the relationship between Hungary and the European Union. Brussels has increased this Sunday the pressure on the country to solve its breaches in terms of the rule of law through its mechanism of conditionality of European funds. In this way, the Community Executive proposes to freeze 7,500 million euros that the country must receive from the EU.
This is the first time that Brussels has applied the conditionality mechanism to a Member State. Poland and Hungary tried to overthrow this tool designed to protect European funds and went to the European Justice, which finally endorsed the mechanism. The decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) was also a warning that any authoritarian turn within the EU will have consequences.
So is this Sunday’s proposal from Brussels. “This decision clearly shows that the Commission is determined to protect the EU budget and to use all the tools in our hands to do so,” said Commissioner in charge of European Budget and Administration, Johannes Hahn.
However, the Community Executive ensures that it has observed that Hungary “is taking steps in the right direction.” In December, the country proposed 17 measures to amend the problems observed by the EU, among which is the modification of the Hungarian penal code, the creation of an independent judicial authority and a body to combat corruption, among others. “These are appropriate measures and we are positive,” Hahn acknowledged.
The proposal from Brussels, which calls for the freezing of 65% of European funds to Hungary, will now go to the European Council. The Member States will have a period of one month – which can be extended up to two – to make a decision. Meanwhile, the European Commission will continue to monitor the situation and on November 19 will once again analyze the state of the reforms. “This is a powerful tool and we are optimistic. I think we will see changes in Hungary,” Hahn said.
This very week the European Parliament has adopted a resolution in which it concludes that Hungary is “an electoral autocracy”. The EU’s concern about the rule of law in the country also keeps the Hungarian recovery plan frozen, worth 5.9 billion euros. In the vote on the text, the European Parliament also expressed its concern about the behavior of the Government of Viktor Orbán in the face of the war in Ukraine, “because perhaps Hungary is more on the side of Putin and Russia, than on the Ukrainian side,” said the green MEP , Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield.
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