The European Parliament is suing Ursula von der Leyen’s EU Commission over the controversial release of funding for Hungary. The German Press Agency learned this on Thursday from a meeting between Parliament President Roberta Metsola and the chairmen of the parliamentary groups in Strasbourg. Previously, on Monday evening, Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee voted with a large majority in favor of the lawsuit before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg.
Through the lawsuit, Parliament wants to clarify whether the Commission’s decision to release frozen EU funding worth around ten billion euros for the country despite ongoing criticism of violations of the rule of law in Hungary was lawful. The Brussels authority justified the move by saying that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had met the necessary conditions.
It is an extremely rare occurrence for the EU Parliament to take the Commission to the ECJ. However, Parliament had already filed a lawsuit against von der Leyen and her team in 2021 because they had initially not applied a then new regulation to punish violations of the rule of law in EU states. However, parliament withdrew the lawsuit after the authority began using the so-called conditionality regulation against Hungary in April 2022. It makes it possible to freeze EU funds intended for Hungary if there is a risk of the funds being misused due to violations of the rule of law.
The new lawsuit is particularly notable because von der Leyen’s party friends made no obvious attempts to prevent it. They now have to ask themselves why they don’t support their top representative on such a fundamental issue. Von der Leyen was officially nominated by the EPP as a candidate for a second term as President of the EU Commission just last week. EPP circles said on Thursday that opposing the lawsuit could have been misinterpreted as support for Orban. In principle, one would actually have wanted to carry out a more detailed legal examination before filing a lawsuit.
Political opponents have already tried to use the proceedings in recent days to inflict political damage on von der Leyen. “The indictment is more than embarrassing for von der Leyen. Von der Leyen is following in Donald Trump’s footsteps, who has to run his presidential campaign from the dock,” mocked the leader of the FDP in the European Parliament, Moritz Körner. But it’s her own fault because she doesn’t care that European taxpayers are making “Orban’s family clan” rich.
The European law professor and SPD MEP René Repasi called the lawsuit before the Court of Justice an important step “to hold the Commission accountable when dealing with autocracies within Europe.” The Green MP Daniel Freund accused the commission of “horse trading”. EU money should only be available if the rule of law works.
How successful the current lawsuit will ultimately be is unclear. Parliament’s legal service recently did not come to a clear conclusion in a report on the chances of a lawsuit. First, Parliament must prove that the Commission made mistakes when issuing the decision, according to the paper available to the German Press Agency. It is expected that “the Commission will put forward a solid defense” and rely on its discretion.
The legal opinion concludes that a lawsuit would raise several questions that have not yet been addressed by the ECJ. This makes it difficult to predict how the Court would rule in such a case. A verdict in the case is unlikely to come until next year at the earliest, long after the European elections scheduled for June and the decision on von der Leyen’s possible second term in office.
Critics of the lawsuit decision therefore see considerable risks. The approach will enable Orban to continue portraying himself as a victim of a political campaign by parliament. In addition, if the lawsuit fails, there is a risk of significant damage to Parliament’s image. The hope expressed that the member states could subsequently withdraw powers from the Commission through a complicated decision-making process is completely unfounded – especially because the decision to release the funds was supported by a large majority of the EU member states.
However, MEPs – including those from the German government parties SPD, Greens and FDP – criticized the release of the money at the time and accused von der Leyen of allowing herself to be blackmailed by Hungary. Orban had previously announced that he would block the start of EU accession negotiations with Ukraine and a billion-dollar EU aid package for the country attacked by Russia.
The start of accession negotiations was finally agreed upon at the summit in December. The aid package was decided at a special summit at the beginning of February.
