Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said values such as the rule of law were the bedrock of Hungary’s value system and democracy but, he said, the Hungarian people must judge how these are implemented, adding that Hungarians were just as capable of this as other European citizens.
According to mandiner.hu, PM Orbán noted that the Hungarian legal system has been properly scrutinised by EU authorities and all outstanding disputes had been resolved. Further, Hungary has submitted “hundreds of pages” of clarification documents over the past two years in connection with the Article 7 procedure ongoing against the country. The prime minister insisted that the Commission’s recent report on the rule of law was based on politically motivated charges against Hungary rather than being fact-based. He added that the report was a way of interfering in the democratic electoral processes of certain countries.
According to MTI, PM Orbán said the planned sanctions mechanism was based on legally vague definitions such as “violation of the rule of law”. Such hazy concepts create opportunities for political abuses and breach the requirement of legal certainty, he wrote. If this situation persisted, the government would have “no other choice” than to reject the other elements of the July package, he added.
Meanwhile, the foreign minister on Friday said that Poland, similarly to Hungary, had come out against a fresh preliminary agreement between the German EU presidency and the EP on tying EU budget allocations to member states “to political and ideological criteria”. Péter Szijjártó said on Facebook that he had discussed the matter with both his Polish counterpart Zbigniew Rau and Polish Minister of Labour, Development and Technology Jaroslaw Gowin by phone earlier in the day. Neither the Hungarian nor the Polish government can allow anyone in a case like this to tie the receipt of European funds to “subjective ideological conditions” or to “use the matter of EU money for political blackmail”, Minister Szijjártó said, adding that he and his Polish partners had assured each other that they would remain committed to their position, and would continue to support one another on the issue.