Updated:
In the dispute over legal violations in Poland and Hungary, the EU Commission has taken a formal step to initiate penalties.
Brussels – The EU Commission has taken a step towards possible penalties for Poland and Hungary for alleged violations of the rule of law in the countries.
She sent letters to representations of the two states on Friday to request information that could be relevant for the application of the so-called EU rule of law mechanism, a spokesman for the Commission confirmed on Saturday. The new sanction rule has been in force since the beginning of the year. It provides that EU countries can reduce funds from the Community budget if there is a risk of the funds being misused due to violations of the rule of law.
The governments in Hungary and Poland fear that the new procedure will primarily be used against them. You have therefore brought an action against the regulation at the ECJ – the proceedings are still ongoing. The EU Commission actually only wanted to trigger the mechanism when the ECJ had decided on the lawsuits from Hungary and Poland. Commission head Ursula von der Leyen had already announced that she could send letters to obtain information. In a next step, the EU Commission could then inform the two countries that it assumes that there are violations of the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. Then measures would have to be taken to pay less EU money to Warsaw and Budapest, for example.
The information that has now been requested from the countries will be included in the Commission’s assessment of whether the requirements for further steps have been met, as the Brussels authority announced on Saturday. Hungary and Poland now have two months to reply. Critics accuse both the Hungarian and Polish governments of influencing the judiciary contrary to EU standards. They also see a threat to the EU budget because, as a rule, national law enforcement authorities and courts are responsible for investigating possible misuse of EU funds.
At the end of October, the European Parliament had already sued the EU Commission because it had not yet triggered the new penal mechanism. There has been a dispute with Hungary and Poland for years because, as evidenced by a number of court rulings, they do not comply with EU law. The dispute with Poland was most recently escalated after a ruling by the Constitutional Court in Warsaw. The court had ruled that essential parts of EU law were incompatible with Poland’s constitution. The EU Commission, on the other hand, repeatedly emphasizes: EU law takes precedence over national law. dpa
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