Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has threatened to veto an EU accord linking the bloc’s long-term budget to a mechanism requiring countries to uphold Europe’s democracy rules, according to an EU source on Sunday (8 November).
The European Council said Thursday that “provisional agreement” had
been reached between Germany, which holds the rotating EU presidency,
and the European Parliament over the seven-year 1.1-trillion-euro budget
as well as a €750-billion virus relief package.
The European Parliament and the Council representing the EU27 reached
a preliminary deal on linking the disbursement of EU funds to rule of
law after five rounds of talks, clearing a major hurdle in the wider
negotiations on the bloc’s budget.
But according to Hungarian news-site mandiner.hu, Orbán threatened to
veto the package in a letter sent to the German presidency and other
European leaders if the payment of budgetary funds to member states is
subject to rule-of-law conditionality.
“Although Hungary is committed to cooperation, in the light of
developments, it cannot provide the unanimity required for the package
adopted in July,” said the letter, sent to EU Commission President
Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, president of the European
Council.
The Hungarian government did not reply to a request by AFP for comment.
A European source told AFP that both Michel and von der Leyen had
received the letter, as had Germany — which currently holds the bloc’s
rotating presidency — and Portugal, which takes over the presidency in
January.
In the letter, Orbán explained “that he cannot give his agreement to
the compromise on conditionality, because it doesn’t correspond to the
package agreed in July,” the EU source said.
In July, EU leaders consented to the principle of rule of law
conditionality when they held a marathon summit that agreed the bloc’s
unprecedented virus bail-out package of grants and loans.
But MEPs complained that the provision was too vague to ensure that
EU countries receiving bloc cash abided by democratic rules — something
fiercely opposed by Hungary and Poland.
Those two member states have come in for scathing criticism from
Brussels for moves seen to erode judicial independence and undermine
rules on migration.
In a statement Thursday, the European Council said the agreed
mechanism “allows to protect the EU budget where it is established that
breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a member state affect
or seriously risk affecting the sound financial management of the EU
budget or the protection of the financial interests of the EU in a
sufficiently direct way”.
But according to mandiner.hu, Orbán said the accord’s “proposed
sanction mechanism is based on legally vague definitions such as
‘violation of the rule of law'”.
“Such difficult-to-define concepts create opportunities for political
abuses and violate the requirement of legal certainty,” he said.
“If this remains the case, the Hungarian government has no choice but
to reject the other elements of the July package,” he added.
Germany had been irked by the European Parliament holding firm on the
issue when the virus relief package urgently needed to be unblocked,
especially with a second wave of the coronavirus sweeping Europe.
Its officials negotiated with the MEPs on behalf of the 27 member states to reach Thursday’s agreement.
“We have a historic 1.8-trillion-euro financial package on the table.
With the second wave of the pandemic hitting member states hard, there
is no time to lose,” said Germany’s envoy Michael Clauss.
EURACTIV
© EURACTIV
Key
Hover over the blue highlighted
text to view the acronym meaning
Hover
over these icons for more information
Comments:
No Comments for this Article