Eurocrats came under heavy fire from a transnational coalition of right-wing MEPs at a plenary session of the European Parliament Wednesday morning as Commission President Ursula von Leyen was lambasted for the EU’s continued pursuit of the sovereigntist Hungarian government.
MEPs are preparing to vote Thursday on plans to strip Hungary of its voting rights at an EU Council level in response to the release of €10.2 billion worth of frozen funding in December last year. Leftist and federalist politicians are leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to prevent Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán from becoming interim Council President in the wake of Charles Michel’s resignation.
Opponents of Orbán’s ruling party, Fidesz, are looking for a two-thirds majority in Parliament to remove Hungary’s voting rights and initiate legal proceedings against the Commission over the legality of the unfreezing of funds in exchange for Hungary not vetoing Ukraine funding.
The powers-that-be in Brussels are worried that Orbán and his conservative Fidesz government will begin to shift the policy direction of the EU when it takes up the influential role of the Council Presidency in June. There were repeated calls to strip Budapest of its EU voting rights during the two-and-a-half-hour-long debate in Strasbourg Thursday.
Von der Leyen praised the Fidesz government for meeting judicial reforms demanded by the Commission before adding that LGBT liberalisation and agreeing to the Asylum and Migration Pact would be tied to any release of future funds, thereby making explicit that what Brussels calls “rule of law” is really a case of holding Hungary’s recovery funds hostage until the conservative government bows completely to the EU’s progressive agenda.
Von der Leyen was castigated by leftist MEPs for not being hawkish enough and encouraged removing voting rights from Hungary under Article 7 of the EU Treaty, even proposing sanctions against Budapest, a suggestion that evoked horror from multiple conservative MEPs.
Estonian MEP Jaak Madison stated that, while he was not in total agreement with the Hungarian position, it was a question of “which country will be next” if the Commission was able to get its way on the matter.
Similarly, VOX’s Hermann Tertsch asked why the EU was ignoring ‘rule of law’ violations by the Sánchez government in Spain while fixating on Hungary. Fidesz MEP Edina Toth highlighted the plight of Polish journalists impacted by the recent clampdown by Poland’s new Tusk government as well as the EU’s relative silence.
Responding to the possibility of removing Hungary’s voting rights at an EU level, Fidesz MEP Balázs Hidvéghi proclaimed, “this is how you dig the EU’s grave” as he noted that his country was facing “ideological blackmail” from Brussels elites.
EPP President Manfred Weber accused Hungary of being part of a right-wing coalition with Germany’s AfD and France’s Le Pen attempting to “torpedo” hopes of ‘European unity.’
Unsurprisingly, the far most aggressive comments of the day came from German Green MEP Daniel Freund, who threatened to help pursue legal action against the Commission for its dealing with Hungary as arch-federalist Guy Verhofstadt chastised von der Leyen to use her powers to take Hungary to task under existing EU treaties.
MEPs will vote on Finnish MEP Petri Sarvamaa’s resolution to strip Hungary of its voting rights shortly before 2 p.m. Thursday.The country’s former justice minister Judit Varga has referred to the legislative assault as the latest “witch hunt” against Budapest’s conservative government.
