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Tuning
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, recently posted on Twitter that there is an agreement between the Heads of State and Government on the EU Framework Budget (MFF) 2021-2027 and NextGenerationEU. Together this covers a gigantic package of € 1,074 + € 750 billion at 2018 prices and means that both the Hungarian and Polish governments have withdrawn from the veto threat because, in return, the other 25 member states have agreed to it. beforehand. compromise text, which significantly softens the so-called rule of law regulation and thus readjusts it into a budget-focused mechanism.
Agreement on the recovery package and now we can start implementation and rebuild our economies. Our historic recovery package will drive our green and digital transitions. #MFF
– Charles (Michel) December 10, 2020
How did the tuning work?
The governments of Hungary and Poland have achieved this alignment on the basis of seven conditions of the rule of law mechanism under which procedures leading to an EU-funded sanction can be initiated. the last and darkest point in detail specified in the additional explanatory text now unanimously approved.
As we wrote at the beginning of November, it was this vague seventh point that caused the two governments the biggest problem (“any other situation or conduct of the Member State authorities relevant to the sound financial management of the EU budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union “.). You can see many things in this (including, for example, family law and migration issues, media relations, debates over political and constitutional arrangements, which the two governments would prefer to see as a question of sovereignty).
According to the two governments, if the European Commission had been able to show, even with twisted logic, that the violation of the rule of law is specific enough for the EU budget, it could have started a sanction procedure to suspend our money from the EU if approved by 15 Member States. or it would have led to their slaughter. So this point meant many billions of euros for the Hungarian government.
With the current 4-page concretization material, the two governments have readjusted the focus of the mechanism with virtually no change in the text of the mechanism itself. so it is already understandable why they abandoned the budget veto. and the other players swallowed because they all wanted to launch the two EU budgets as soon as possible.
It is clear from the tensions of the last few weeks that the European Parliament does not want to change the text at all, as does the vast majority of the 25 Member States. So a typical Brussels compromise seemed to be a matter of generating open wings, political maneuvering, and a lot of communication noise that everyone at home could sell to their own constituents according to their own taste. But, in our opinion, who launched a lot is not a problem: the other Member States and the EP. Mainly so that, to the best of our knowledge, when drafting the compromise text formally submitted by the Germans They “grabbed the pen” very hard from Budapest and Warsaw, and during the drafting, the Legal Service of the European Council also indicated with certainty that there would be no problem with this.
It’s no coincidence that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán came up with a short video mentioning cold champagne after tonight’s deal:
Because, according to reliable information from the Portfolio, the text of yesterday’s German compromise project received unanimous support without change in the European Council, so together with the above information, we stand by our opinion, which we expressed yesterday after a detailed presentation of the points.
Based on the original draft of the Commission’s Rule of Law Mechanism 2018, followed by a detailed study of the different drafts and the final text + explanation, we see that the result can be considered a significant success of the governments of Hungary and Poland, as the regulation, which the European Commission and the European Parliament intended to be the rule of law, has become “just” a regulation with strong EU budgetary protection. For this reason, the title of our next op-ed is “Viktor Orbán won in the short term, the EU as a whole won the deal in the long term.”
Our opinion yesterday was: “In general, many elements of the mechanism that is already in place, adopted by the 25 Member States and the European Parliament, are re-emphasized in the previous guidelines, but in the meantime smoothes it significantly in several essential points: 1) it cannot be applied to court proceedings, 2) it does not apply to 2014-2020 money and 3) makes it clear that the mechanism should only be viewed from the perspective of protecting the EU’s financial interests.
With The new rules will be an important disciplinary force in cases of financial fraud, corruption and conflicts of interest in the EU., as it fully requires the full institutional and financial independence of the judiciary in the conduct of the EU financial systems (in case of insufficient cooperation or selective and abusive application of the legal framework, and in case of risk of undermining the independence of power judicial, as well as due to the retention of financial and human resources). In addition, the mechanism provides for effective and timely cooperation between Member State prosecutors and the EU Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), and effective recovery systems in each Member State against those who abuse EU funds. . Furthermore, the mechanism will continue to require vigorous action against abuses affecting the revenue of the EU budget (eg tax fraud, tax evasion). “
Top image: European Union, Alexandros Michailidis, European Council media outlet on the EU summit on 10 December 2020
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