EU starts process to cut funding to Hungary over rule of law

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Fee will start proceedings to suspend guidance payments to Hungary for breaching the 27-country bloc’s rule-of-legislation standards, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen mentioned Tuesday.

It will be the initially time that the new conditionality mechanism permitting the EU to consider steps to shield its spending budget will be employed after the European Union’s optimum court docket dominated in February that it experienced been adopted on audio legal basis.

Von der Leyen’s announcement at the European Parliament arrived two times just after Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Sunday’s election, professing a mandate for a fourth phrase.

Hungary, a massive recipient of EU money, has occur beneath expanding criticism over the earlier several decades for veering away from democratic norms with guidelines these as exerting extreme command around the judiciary, stifling media flexibility and denying the legal rights of LGBT people today.

Von der Leyen claimed her team was not confident by Hungary’s responses to queries relating to the rule of legislation.

“Our summary is we have to move on the subsequent phase,” she claimed, including that a letter of formal notification will before long be despatched to Hungarian authorities.

The rule, viewed as the EU’s most potent weapon to protect against a democratic rift from deepening within the bloc, was approved far more than a 12 months in the past, but the European Fee waited until it been given legal reassurances ahead of applying it.