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Ideas emerged Tuesday morning that could avoid the veto between Hungary and Poland, so there would be a rule of law mechanism without the two countries contributing to it. The budget for next year, on the other hand, is already a different mass, it would still be pending, which in turn would not be good for anyone.
The Hungarian and Polish governments were thoroughly mixed up with Monday’s veto. It seems that a deadlock has emerged: Budapest and Warsaw will not allow the EU to start distributing hard-to-negotiate stimulus money, it will even give up its own money, but there will be no rule of law mechanism. However, most Western countries and the vast majority of the European Parliament will not allow the new budget to start without a rule of law mechanism. All actors have the right to veto.
This would avoid the Hungarian and Polish vetoes.
On Tuesday morning, however, an idea emerged that some had only talked about in the background until then, he writes 444.hu. Lawyers working with the EP confirmed to the portal that, in principle, the idea could even work.
The basic idea is that the rule of law mechanism can be adopted without Poland and Hungary. The European Parliament is expected to vote on it next week, after which the proposal will be presented to the General Affairs Council and EU ministers and, if approved, will enter into force on January 1. In the test vote held on Monday among the ambassadors, the qualified majority was fluid – notes 444.hu.
This means that, despite the opposition of the Hungarian and Polish Prime Ministers, the mechanism could be armed and therefore even apply to all payments from the beginning of next year; the argument is according to 444.hu. It is true that it would not be a new seven-year budget either, which in turn would mean that the 2020 budget framework would also apply to next year, extending the financial cycle that expires this year. In other words, how much money came this year for cohesion, agricultural support, whatever, without so many new budgets next year.
However, on the basis of this argument, the rule of law mechanism that will come into force next year could apply to these payments, whether or not they are voted by the Hungarian and Polish governments, and if a qualified majority of the states members agree, resigning governments could be withdrawn from EU funding. means.
However, it should be borne in mind that, although the European Commission, Parliament and the Council have so far mentioned the mechanism of the rule of law in relation to the budget, these two aspects are not strictly linked in legal terms, they are two pieces of legislation separated.
I’m not sure if it is so
However, the big idea is not necessarily applied in the way mentioned above by some. Among the experts who spoke to 444.hu, there were those who were of the opinion that this mechanism could not be applied to payments decided according to the old order because it would raise the problem of subsequent legislation. Doubts suggest that the Hungarian and Polish governments could challenge the EU spending court if the old spending rules were subsequently lowered, and it is unclear what the end of such a lawsuit would be and the EU institutions would be in a very serious position. uncomfortable if the rule of law would be illegally enforced.
At the same time, 444.hu emphasizes that there is no formal implementation of the above scenario yet, the Council has embarked on a path of persuasion for the time being.
And the recovery fund?
The Brussels portal Bruxinfo also wrote on Monday that if political talks failed to lift the blockade, the EU would have alternatives, including a rescue fund to alleviate the damage caused by the coronavirus despite the veto, which would be vital, especially for the Southern European Member States.
Silvia Merler, a former expert at the Bruegel Institute, pointed out that if the own resources system could not be changed unanimously, the current MFF (2014-2020) would be the starting point, which does not have the largest recovery fund of 672,500 million of euros. (RRF). The RRF, which is so important to many countries, could break out of the Hungarian-Polish veto lock, for example by transferring it from the EU budget to an ad hoc intergovernmental agreement similar to the ESM. As a result, the fund could be launched for other countries, but the Hungarians and Poles would not receive a penny, while the rule of law would be operational through the MFP and would apply to EU funds from Hungary and Poland. In other words, Merler believes that the hoax between Hungary and Poland could be emptied if the rest of the EU makes it clear that the immediate next step would be to transform the FRR into an intergovernmental agreement.
Don’t think about them!
Yet another prominent EU expert, Lucas Guttenberg from Berlin, considers outsourcing the EU budget recovery tool to be a “horrible and unnecessary” idea, in part because such a solution would create a “chaotic situation. “similar to that of the ESM, in which each transfer would have to be decided unanimously by the participants, and if a special financial instrument to implement the intergovernmental agreement were to issue debt, it would appear statistically on the books of the Member States, that is , the greatest achievement of the recovery. nothing.
With such a solution, the most politically prospective element of the new instrument would also come out of the “safe asset”, while the researcher said that there would be uncertainty about who would have to pay the debt. And thirdly, he believes that “this is an EU project” that should not be restarted a few months after Brexit by creating external spending structures just for some people to like their home environment.
Guttenberg believes that, contrary to popular belief, not only the main beneficiaries of the package will lose the veto, but also those countries (the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Denmark and Germany) that can expect a big budget cut from the next MFF.
According to 444.hu, most experts expect real breakthrough only from the summit in Brussels, which begins on December 10, where you can negotiate in person, even in small group retreats, if you can keep the meeting due. to the virus.
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