The European Commission published its annual Rule of Law Report on Wednesday, July 24th, concluding that two-thirds (68%) of the recommendations issued last year have been fully or partially addressed, and that “member states and the EU as a whole are much better prepared to detect, prevent and address emerging challenges.”
However, during their press conference on Wednesday, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, and EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders criticised the usual suspects, countries they consider the EU’s ‘black sheep’—Hungary and Slovakia, whose patriotic, sovereigntist governments are being constantly blackmailed by EU institutions for daring to go against the mainstream tide on issues like migration and Ukraine.
The annual Rule of Law Report assesses all the twenty-seven member states’ progress on judicial independence, corruption, media freedom, and institutional checks and balances.
EU institutions have been arbitrarily using the vague ‘rule-of-law’ concept as a political weapon to harass the governments of member states with which they don’t agree ideologically.
Hungary’s conservative government, in power since 2010, has faced many rule-of-law procedures by the EU, including the so-called Article 7 procedure, for allegedly being in breach of the EU’s “core values,” relating to issues such as corruption, academic freedom, and LGBT rights. The country was heavily fined earlier this year for protecting the EU’s external borders, and €22 billion worth of the country’s EU funds are still being blocked. Slovakia’s left-wing nationalist government has also been criticised and threatened with EU sanctions for modifying the country’s criminal code. Both countries have angered the EU elites with their anti-migration, sovereigntist politics, and criticism of EU support for Ukraine’s war.
Meanwhile, the Europhile left-liberal government in Poland was rewarded with a €137 billion financial package for the mere promise of overturning judicial reforms initiated by the previous conservative cabinet which was deprived of EU funds.
No wonder the European Commission’s Rule of Law Report praised Poland for “making significant progress in ensuring the independence of the prosecution, and in judicial reforms, and making improvements in the fight against corruption.” The report, however, makes no mention of the leftist government’s purge of its conservative political opponents. Its aggressive takeover of the public broadcaster was even commended by Brussels, which says progress has been made with regards to “enhancing the independence of public service media.”
A similar overhaul of the public broadcaster in Slovakia, which the sovereigntist government says is necessary to make it more impartial and politically balanced, is criticised by the Rule of Law Report, questioning whether “the future independence of the broadcaster” would be guaranteed. Věra Jourová even threatened Slovakia on Wednesday with an infringement procedure if it goes through with the overhaul.
Regarding Hungary, the report says there is a lack of progress in many areas, including corruption, editorial independence of public media, and obstacles that hinder the work of NGOs. “Hungary is a real systemic issue for the commission about the rule of law,” Didier Reynders told the news conference on Wednesday.
Given the years of politically biased ‘rule-of-law’ procedures initiated against Hungary by the EU, it is unsurprising that Hungarian officials have not commented on this latest report.
