Hungary's spokesman has said the fact that the European Parliament voted to adopt the Sargentini Report on the state of the rule of law in Hungary with a two-thirds majority contravened European Union law from several perspectives.
Government Spokesperson Zoltán Kovács made the claim in an interview with BBC World Service radio and said the Report is a criticism of the kind that has been heard often during the past eight years - obviously politically motivated, and was aimed at the Hungarian government by left-wing liberal MEPs.
“The government has already rejected the statements cited by the Sargentini Report several times, and on this occasion also prepared a 108-page document detailing the Report’s factual errors and politically motivated conclusions," he said.
“The European Union has only a single body that can examine adherence to EU law and organise a debate on such issues: the European Commission, and not the Parliament," he added.
The spokesman said the EP did not bother to hide the fact that this was a political procedure, in which it accused the government of violating EU values.
"EU values are set down in the EU legal system, and whatever legal disputes Hungary may have had with the Commission, all of them have been resolved," he said.
“In what kind of a legal system can cases that have already been closed be re-opened again?" he asked. “This is why we are stating that the adoption of the Sargentini Report is a political witch-hunt, not least because the manipulated voting system within which this report was adopted is also at odds with the EU treaties," he added, referring to the fact that votes of abstention were not taken into account during the tallying of the votes.