Five members of the European Parliament, the French Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield of the Greens–European Free Alliance, the Portuguese Isabel Wiseler-Santos Lima of the European People’s Party, the Dutch Thijs Reuten of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, fellow Dutch Sophie in ‘t Veld of Renew Europe, and the Swedish Malin Björk of The Left, held a press conference in Brussels, Belgium on Wednesday, 31 May. The topic of discussion was the shadow rapporteurs on the current state of the rule of law in Hungary. However, Hungary taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, which is due to happen a year from July, was the overarching context of all the statements made.
Evidently,
none of the five speakers was thrilled with the prospect of PM Viktor Orbán steering the EU policy-making process for the second half of next year.
Sophie in ‘t Veld suggested ‘stripping the presidency of all the glitter and glamour’ in response, later opting for the wording ‘reducing the presidency to its bare minimum’ to express the same idea. To be exact, she suggested not doing any press conferences with members of the Hungarian government while they are in the Council leadership role, and halting the traditional trialogues between the EP, the Commission, and the Council for the time being as well. Also, she wants to force PM Orbán and his cabinet members to share the podium ‘with someone who has been silenced in Hungary’ every time they publicly speak while Hungary’s Council president.
Ms in ‘t Veld also took umbrage with the positive tone Commissioner Hahn has been taking recently about the negotiations about releasing the frozen EU funds due to Hungary. In fact, she even takes umbridge with calling it ‘negotiations’, as she emphasised that this a procedure to asses if Hungary is meeting the rule of law criteria of the EU, not bilateral talks.
Reuten was also concerned that the EU Commission is not tough enough on the Orbán administration, saying that the recent rule of law concessions they made were too small steps, and they could be easily reversed once the funds are released with no way left for the EU to interfere. He too criticised the EU commissioners in talks with Hungarian officials about the common funds, calling on them to stop saying publicly that they had a good discussion, as ‘we are way beyond that point’, as he put it.
He went on to state that he believes PM Orbán views the EU as ‘a cash machine, an ATM’ and does not understand that he has to subscribe to EU values as the head of a Member State’s government.
Björk was the most ‘optimistic’ about preventing Hungary’s Council presidency, the remaining four liberal MEPs at the conference more-or-less accepted the fact that it is very unlikely to be stopped by EU institutions. Björk, however, claimed that ‘the Hungarian presidency a no-go’ and called on the EU Commission to stop it from happening.
Delbos-Corfield also shared some grudge against another EU institution, namely the Council, saying that we should ‘look at the Council, and not just Hungary’ as ‘they’re the one giving Hungary power’.
She also reminded the audience that last year, a resolution was passed by the EP according to which Hungary has a hybrid system of ‘electoral autocracy’, and that the country has been under Article 7 procedure since 2011. Based on all this,
she lamented the fact that Hungary still has ‘the same rights and privileges’ as any other country in the Union.
She also shared her dissatisfaction with how little power the European Parliament has in her opinion, and went on to say that many of her fellow MEPs feel the same way. She also confidently stated the resolution on the Hungarian government’s efforts to undermine European values will be passed by the EU Parliament tomorrow.
