EU Parliament sues Commission over funds for Hungary
Published: Thursday, Mar 14th 2024, 13:20
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The European Parliament is suing Ursula von der Leyen's EU Commission over the controversial release of subsidies for Hungary.
The German Press Agency learned this on Thursday from a meeting between Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the leaders of the political groups in Strasbourg. Earlier on Monday evening, the Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee had voted by a large majority in favor of taking the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.
Through the lawsuit, the Parliament wants to clarify whether the Commission's decision to release around ten billion euros of frozen EU funds to Hungary was lawful, despite ongoing criticism of violations of the rule of law in the country. The Brussels authority justified the move by stating that the Hungarian head of government Viktor Orban had fulfilled the necessary conditions.
Extremely rare event
The EU Parliament taking the Commission to the ECJ is an extremely rare occurrence. However, the Parliament had already taken von der Leyen and her team to court in 2021 because they had initially failed to apply a then new regulation to punish violations of the rule of law in EU states. However, Parliament withdrew the complaint after the authority began to use the so-called Conditionality Regulation against Hungary in April 2022. This makes it possible to freeze EU countries intended for Hungary if there is a risk of misuse of funds due to breaches of the rule of law.
The new lawsuit is particularly noteworthy because von der Leyen's party colleagues made no obvious attempts to prevent it. They now have to put up with the question of why they do not support their top representative on such a fundamental issue. Von der Leyen was only officially put forward by the EPP last week as the EPP candidate for a second term as President of the EU Commission. EPP circles said on Thursday that opposing the lawsuit could have been misunderstood as support for Orban. In principle, they would have wanted to carry out an even more detailed legal examination before taking legal action.
Harsh accusations against von der Leyen
Political opponents have already tried to use the proceedings in recent days to inflict political damage on von der Leyen. "The indictment is more than embarrassing for von der Leyen. Von der Leyen is following in the footsteps of Donald Trump, who has to run his presidential election campaign from the dock," mocked Moritz Körner, Chairman of the FDP in the European Parliament. But this is her own fault because she is not bothered by the fact that European taxpayers are making "Orban's family clan" rich.
European law professor and SPD MEP René Repasi called the action before the Court of Justice an important step "to hold the Commission to account in its dealings with inner-European autocracies". Green MEP Daniel Freund accused the Commission of "horse-trading". EU money should only be given if the rule of law is functioning.
Unclear prospects of success
It is unclear how successful the current lawsuit will be in the end. Parliament's legal service recently came to no clear conclusion in an expert opinion on the chances of a lawsuit. According to the paper, which is available to the German Press Agency, the Parliament must first prove that the Commission made mistakes when adopting the decision. It is to be expected that "the Commission, for its part, will put forward a solid defense" and rely on its discretionary powers.
The legal opinion concludes that an action would raise several questions that have not yet been addressed by the ECJ. This makes it difficult to predict how the Court would rule in such a case. In any case, a ruling in the case is unlikely to come until next year at the earliest, i.e. long after the European elections scheduled for June and the decision on a possible second term of office for von der Leyen.
Critics of the legal decision therefore see considerable risks. The procedure will allow Orban to continue to present himself as the victim of a political campaign by parliament. In addition, if the lawsuit fails, there is also the threat of considerable damage to Parliament's image. The expressed hope that the member states could subsequently withdraw powers from the Commission via a complicated decision-making procedure is completely unfounded - especially because the decision to release the funds was supported by a large majority of EU member states.
MEPs speak of blackmail
However, MEPs - including those from the German governing parties SPD, Greens and FDP - criticized the release of the money at the time and accused von der Leyen of allowing herself to be blackmailed by Hungary. Orban had previously announced that he would block the start of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and an EU aid package worth billions for the country attacked by Russia.
Agreement was finally reached on the start of accession negotiations at the summit in December. The aid package was agreed at a special summit at the beginning of February.
©Keystone/SDA
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