The European Parliament officially submitted its lawsuit to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) against the von der Leyen Commission over its unblocking of €10 billion EU funds owed to Hungary, both the Parliament and ECJ confirmed on Tuesday, March 26th, following inquiries from sovereigntist think tank MCC Brussels.
After meeting with leaders of the parliamentary groups, EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola agreed to launch the lawsuit two weeks ago, on March 14th. The deadline for the court submission was set for March 25th, with the final say reserved for Metsola in the meantime. Both EU institutions have now confirmed that the lawsuit against the European Commission is live and awaiting the Court’s investigation.
The Parliament’s animosity towards the Commission comes from the fact that it unblocked €10.2 billion in EU funds for Hungary—roughly one-third of the country’s cohesion and pandemic recovery funds frozen for alleged rule-of-law violations, including purported lack of judicial independence, treatment of illegal migrants, and LGBT-restrictive laws.
This first tranche in question was set for release after the Commission deemed Hungary’s systemic judicial reforms—implemented under close EU scrutiny and according to European standards—sufficient for strengthening the country’s judicial independence.
Leftist and center-right MEPs, however, claim that Hungarian reforms are still not enough, and allege the Commission merely approved them in exchange for Budapest’s support for starting accession negotiations with Ukraine.
Budapest, in turn, has been denouncing these accusations of backdoor dealings as baseless and argued that the Parliament is engaging in a politically motivated witch hunt, with the sole objective of keeping the funds away from Hungary’s conservative government indefinitely, regardless of any reforms.
Hungary had fulfilled the criteria demanded to unblock the first tranche, noted Judit Varga— Hungary’s former justice minister—back in January, even according to the Commission itself. “Looks like … when it comes to the hatred of Hungary, the liberal left [does not even believe] its own institution,” she commented on the case.
“Europe replaced democracy with hypocrisy, and dialogue [has been] replaced by a political witch hunt and blackmailing with European funds,” she added.
Later, the European Parliament even organized a hearing with three Commissioners to have them explain the situation and demand a reversal of the decision to unfreeze the funds. Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders, however, confirmed repeatedly that Hungary did indeed fulfill all the requirements correctly, and the Commission had no other options but to hold up its end of the bargain—even if reluctantly.
“Since Hungary undertook all the reform requests [on judicial independence], it was not possible to adopt a negative decision,” Reynders told the furious leftist MEPs.
Exhibiting politically motivated double standards in the face of genuine concessions, the EU also moved to unblock over €100 billion of Poland’s similarly frozen cash almost immediately after a liberal coalition took power in Warsaw, on merely the promise of completing pending reforms in the future. The Parliament has no problems with it, despite the blatant rule-of-law violations of the new Tusk government.
Still, the European Parliament adopted the resolution calling for a legal challenge to the Commission’s decision in January with 345 votes for and 104 against, with only the two conservative blocks, ECR and ID, standing against it.
What’s interesting is that the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) also supported the text, irrespective of the fact that suing the Commission might influence the re-election prospects of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who herself hails from the EPP.
Nonetheless, the question is now in the hands of the ECJ. The leftist MEPs will be probably disappointed when the verdict comes, as they forget which institution is really calling the shots in Brussels and it’s unlikely that the Court would rule against the von der Leyen Commission in a campaign period. It’s also unlikely that the Parliament will cease campaigning against Hungary if it finds the ruling unsatisfactory, but it could well find itself denied one legal avenue of attack.
