Móna Márk: What long-term impact will the abolition of unanimity in voting have on the European Union?
The question is whether this is an accident, a one-off incident, or a new practice. What has Hungary done? We’ve always opposed the freezing of the Russian assets, and we’ve said so every time we needed to vote on it. But in the spirit of loyal cooperation – which is a general principle in the EU – we’ve also said that we don’t want to make it impossible, if twenty-six other countries insist on it. There are some direct Hungarian interests on which I myself am willing to use our veto; but where there’s just a bad decision and no direct Hungarian interest, we prefer to record our disagreement with the decision, but not obstruct it. This is one of the possible tools we can use. I’ve done this so far – in the matter of the frozen Russian assets Hungary has acted in accordance with the rules of loyal cooperation with the EU. There’s no justification for depriving Hungary of this right. In this specific case, in the matter of sanctions, I consider this to be the EU’s renunciation of the principle of loyal cooperation with Hungary. If the other party has renounced it, as is evident, from now on I no longer consider the principle of loyal cooperation to be binding on Hungary. This clearly shows that a decision taken in a specific case can have far-reaching consequences – not only in Hungary’s case, but obviously if we think this way, others may also be thinking the same.