According to three law professors, proceedings to cut EU funds could be initiated immediately against Hungary. According to an opinion commissioned by several MEPs, breaches of the rule of law in the country threaten to seriously affect the protection of the European Union’s financial interests. This would be the prerequisite for a procedure.
Specifically, law professors in Hungary see a lack of transparency in the management of EU funds and the lack of an effective national law enforcement agency to investigate and prosecute fraud. In addition, they consider that there is no effective judicial review by independent courts of the acts or omissions of the authorities dealing with the Union’s financial interests.
“This study forms the legal basis for a sanction procedure,” commented co-client Daniel Freund von den Grünen. The EU Commission only needs to put it in an envelope and send it to the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The prerequisites for funding cuts are over-fulfilled.
Professor Kim Scheppele from Princeton University and Professors Daniel Kelemen from Rutgers University and John Morijn from Groningen University were involved in the report, according to Freund. It is to be officially presented this Wednesday at a press conference in Strasbourg. The German Press Agency had received it in advance.
The European Parliament has been criticizing for months that the EU Commission has not yet used the new procedure to cut EU funds in the event of rule-of-law violations. Most recently, it has therefore already initiated proceedings against the EU Commission for a lawsuit for failure to act.
EU countries cut funds from the community budget
The move is intended to get the authority to apply the new instrument immediately. It provides that EU countries can reduce funds from the community budget if there is a risk of misuse of the funds due to violations of the rule of law.
The proceedings are particularly explosive because, following an agreement between the heads of state and government, the EU Commission should actually only take action once the European Court of Justice has ruled on a complaint by Hungary and Poland against the new regulation.
This concession made the governments in Budapest and Warsaw last year abandon their blockade of important EU budget decisions.
Hungary and Poland assume that the so-called conditionality mechanism is incompatible with current EU law. From the Polish point of view, only “objective and specific conditions” may apply to the allocation of money from the EU budget. The EU has no power to define the term “rule of law”, it is said.
The EU Commission argues that not a single case will be lost due to the delay. In addition to Hungary, Poland, for example, is considered a country that could face funding cuts due to the new regulation. The government in Warsaw has long been accused of unduly expanding its influence over the judiciary. (dpa)
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