The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution urging the European Commission and Council to freeze funding for Hungary under the so-called rule of law conditionality measures despite anti-corruption reforms the country pledged to implement in early October
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th November, 2022) The European Parliament on Thursday adopted a resolution urging the European Commission and Council to freeze funding for Hungary under the so-called rule of law conditionality measures despite anti-corruption reforms the country pledged to implement in early October.
As many as 416 European lawmakers voted in favor of the resolution, 124 voted against with 33 more abstentions.
"The risk of misuse of EU funds in Hungary remains and the Commission should not approve Hungary's RRF (recovery and resilience plan) until the country has fully complied with all recommendations in the field of the rule of law and all relevant judgments of the EU Court and the Court of Human Rights," the statement released by the parliament said.
Lawmakers also criticized Hungary for "abuse" of the rule of voting in the EU by unanimity when the country blocked "crucial EU decisions" such as measures to help Ukraine. In the resolution, members of the parliament called on the bloc not to give in to such pressure.
"Commission and Council should resist pressure from Hungary and go ahead with adopting the proposed rule of law conditionality measures to suspend EU cohesion funds," the message read.
The conditionality regime, which came into force in January 2021, is a tool to protect EU funds from being misused by member states that do not adequately uphold the rule of law. It works by withholding EU funding from delinquent states.
Hungary is the first country to have fallen foul of this mechanism. In April 2022, the EU Commission raised concerns about systematic irregularities in public procurement, insufficiencies in addressing conflict of interest, weaknesses in the effective pursuit of investigations in cases involving union funds, and shortcomings in Hungary's anti-corruption practices.
The Hungarian authorities then committed to 17 remedial measures also known as the recovery and resilience plan. However, the Commission decided to see what the concrete changes would amount to, and proposed a suspension of 65% of the commitments under cohesion policy, amounting to an estimated 7.5 billion Euros ($7.8 billion), if all the measures Hungary had committed to were not implemented by the end of the year.
The Council is expected to vote on a decision regarding funds for Hungary on December 19.
