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Hungary and Poland are being subjected to “political blackmail” by the EU on the grounds of rule of law, the Hungarian Justice Minister said Tuesday at an event organized by the Institute for International and European Affairs in Dublin.
Judit Varga said that the real difference between her country and most of the other EU member states lies in political opinion on issues like migration.
“At the end of the day, there is a real difference, in the sense that we don’t want to make Europe a continent of immigrants.”
She spoke at an online event that was also addressed by the Minister of State responsible for EU affairs, Thomas Byrne.
Byrne said Ireland strongly supports the new mechanism linking access to EU funds with compliance with the rule of law.
He said Ireland supported the continuation of Article 7 proceedings against Hungary and Poland, one of the most serious measures the union can take against member states. The proceedings were invoked for reasons of rule of law.
Ms. Varga said that her country and Poland now have a “real and pure experience” of how political these procedures can become.
He said there were progressive “left” governments in Europe and governments that were interested in preserving the status quo, with the latter in the minority.
The opinion of the majority must respect the opinion of the minority, which is legitimate, he said.
Byrne said the Irish government does not see the problem with Hungary as a political one, or between progressives and “the right”, but rather as something absolutely essential for the EU.
“The objective of the rule of law is that political opinion can exist within it, all shades of political opinion, provided that we adhere to the values of democracy in particular, respect for the courts and free media ”.
Ms Varga was asked about reports that her government may take action against social media companies on the question of how they manage their content.
He said that the “apparently arbitrary censorship” that existed had to be examined and that this was an issue that concerned other European countries.
Byrne said he fundamentally disagreed with Varga if she was saying that right-wing thinking was not being promoted on social media. Evidence from the United States appeared to be the opposite, he said.
There are serious problems related to the rule of law around the world, including in the United States, where there has been a “Capitol invasion.”
It is to the credit of the EU, he said, that it is “doing something about it.”
Varga said that Ireland and Hungary agreed on the constituent parts of the rule of law, such as democracy, peace and equality before the law.
However, what was happening within the Article 7 procedures was not a dialogue on the rule of law, but rather “ideological or political blackmail,” he argued.
The real problem was differences of political opinion, not the rule of law, and this was especially true in relation to migration.
“We are talking about concepts, about the future of Europe. We don’t think the continent should get rid of its origins, or let’s say why it became the best place to work. It should be kept so that the Member States decide who they want to live with ”.
Democracy was an important value and if different decisions are made in politics they should not be named after matters related to the rule of law, so blackmail could be used to change those positions.
The EU Commission’s report on the rule of law, released last September, was “invalid” as there was no treaty basis for its opinion to prevail on the matter, he said.
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