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The prime ministers of Hungary and Poland rehearsed the scene, this Thursday in Budapest, and set the stage for a real drama at the next European Council on December 10 in Brussels.
The result of this third act of negotiations between the leaders, for the approval of the next multiannual financial framework and the recovery fund “Next Generation EU”, remains unpredictable: the only certainty is who without a “substantial change” of the current Proposal for a future mechanism of the rule of law, which will condition the transfers of European funds to the member states, the two countries will not accept the financial package of 1.8 billion euros to overcome the pandemic crisis.
In a written statement, released at the end of a bilateral meeting in Budapest, Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki, guarantee that they want to contribute to a solution that will unblock the process and facilitate the availability of the “necessary financial means” to face the crisis caused by the new coronavirus. “As soon as possible”. But they insist that it must undergo a reformulation of the proposal, negotiated by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, so that the new regime of conditionalities for the distribution of European money meets democratic standards.
An impossible requirement to fulfill – MEPs and several member states have already said that the agreement is closed and that they are not available to reopen negotiations – and that it will seriously jeopardize the financing of all European programs and policies from next January . year, as well as the ambitious recovery and resilience plan designed as the new Marshall Plan for post-pandemic economic reconstruction.
“Our goal is to prevent [que seja adoptado] a mechanism that will not strengthen, but rather undermine the rule of law in the Union, by becoming a political instrument ”, affirm the two intransigent leaders. “The proposed conditionality ignores the treaty, and uses vague definitions and ambiguous terms, without establishing clear criteria for the application of sanctions and without containing procedural guarantees,” they affirm, adding that the proposal still goes against the decision of the leaders. , when approval of the crisis response package at the July summit.
The reference is that the two shake off the pressure and throw the responsibility of the blockade on the other side of the barricade. “The current situation, which prevents the rapid completion of the legislative process, was created by those who established a link between the rule of law and the community budget,” they point out, recalling that from the beginning of the negotiations it was known that “this link put into approval of the financial package ”. “Our position has always been very clear in this regard,” they emphasize.
The solution to overcoming the impasse, they suggest, may be to establish a parallel, “two-way” process. On the faster track, the scope of budget conditionality is immediately limited to the protection of the Union’s financial interests and, on the slower track, it is discussed whether this link between the rule of law and the budget should be definitively established. “If this is the decision of the European Council, all the procedures provided for in the treaties, including the convening of an intergovernmental conference, must be considered in order to negotiate its necessary modification,” they conclude.
