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Germany gives way to Poland and Hungary
| Reading time: 4 minutes
Germany presents a plan to cut EU funds in case of violations of the rule of law, and in the European Parliament it is said that the federal government is going to embrace Orban.
What: REUTERS
Countries like Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria are dismantling the rule of law, and critics have long called for EU funding to be cut. But a proposal from the German Presidency of the Council of the EU is now weakening the specific mechanism. In the European Parliament, this causes head shaking.
meU countries like Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria don’t have to wait for a cut in their EU funds just yet. According to a compromise proposal presented by the German Council Presidency on Monday, the mechanism for compliance with the rule of law will be much more tame than what the Commission proposed in the summer. According to this, individual cuts to EU financial aid must be preceded by costly individual agreements between the ministers of the member states. Reuters and the German Press Agency had previously reported on the newspaper.
The issue is also explosive because without an agreement on the so-called rule of law mechanism, there is a risk that the long-term EU budget and the economic stimulus program of the European Crown will be blocked for a total of 1.8 billion euros. Countries like Poland and Hungary have previously stated that they only want to pass resolutions if the regulation turns out to be acceptable. Hungary and Poland assume that strict regulations will be applied mainly against them.
At the end of the week, EU representatives will discuss the distribution of economic aid from the Crown, which is urgently expected, especially in the southern European countries devastated by the pandemic. Without the consent of Poland and Hungary, the money will not flow. In this context, Brussels seems inclined to give in to pressure from Eastern Europe. In the summer, Brussels proposed allowing sanctions against a member state if a fundamental breach of the rule of law alone threatens to undermine the prerequisites for sound financial management. Organizations like Transparency International have long complained that in many EU countries, including Poland, Hungary and Bulgaria, EU funds leak into corrupt structures without being sufficiently prosecuted by the courts. Furthermore, the EU Commission is already targeting Poland and Hungary. Poland mainly due to controversial judicial reform, Hungary due to the way it treats press freedom
“Signs of cowardice and lack of principles”
The initial objective of the Commission was to ensure that a proposal to reduce funding would be considered adopted if the Council of Ministers did not reject or modify it by a qualified majority within one month. Under the German proposal, it is now only stipulated that all sanctions must be voted on before they come into force and that a qualified majority is required for this. This obstacle is considered very high. A qualified majority generally means that at least 15 EU states must agree, which together represent at least 65 percent of the total population of the Union. It is difficult or unlikely that such majorities will occur.
In the European Parliament, the compromise proposal of the German Presidency of the Council attracted strong criticism. MPs called the proposal Monday a sign of “cowardice and unprincipled” and “insolence.” The federal government is on a hugging course with Hungary’s head of government, Viktor Orban, and the chairman of the ruling Polish PiS party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, criticized Moritz Körner (FDP).
Daniel Freund, Member of the European Parliament for the Greens, told WELT: “With this proposal, the Presidency of the German Council is completely pushing the rule of law mechanism against the wall.” The devil is in the details: “With the current voting procedure, the member states would in the future decide for themselves who should be sanctioned. . The protection of the European rule of law is therefore the subject of political debate in the Council ”. However, it is the Commission’s task to monitor compliance with the European Treaties.
MPs would now be pressured to vote for European solidarity through the Corona development program or to defend the rule of law. “But you can’t sacrifice one for the other,” Freund said. The proposal is “basically an outrage.”
The European Parliament can still veto the current plans. However, the situation is already a disaster. The so-called EU Article 7 proceedings are already running against Poland, which in theory could even end with the withdrawal of the EU’s voting rights. But they are blocked due to significant obstacles to voting. As a result, Warsaw and Budapest have so far done almost nothing to stop dangerous developments in the field of justice and freedom of expression from the point of view of other EU states. Furthermore, the rights of minorities and the situation of migrants are also a problem in Hungary.
