Jus­tice Min­is­ter: Ger­man EU presidency’s new pro­pos­al on rule of law mech­a­nisim is “unac­cept­able”

“One can­not pro­tect the rule of law by vio­lat­ing its most basic prin­ci­ples,” Min­is­ter Var­ga said on Facebook.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter Judit Var­ga said the Ger­man EU presidency’s new pro­pos­al on link­ing the receipt of funds to respect for the rule of law is “unac­cept­able”, argu­ing that the mech­a­nism put for­ward by Ger­many would lead to the uni­lat­er­al amend­ment of the EU treaties.

“One can­not pro­tect the rule of law by vio­lat­ing its most basic prin­ci­ples,” Min­is­ter Var­ga said on Face­book. “This is not the rule of law but rather a sim­ple act of black­mail.” The rule of law is a shared val­ue pro­tect­ed by Arti­cle 7 of the Treaty on the Euro­pean Union, the min­is­ter said. Estab­lish­ing new mech­a­nisms relat­ing to the rule of law requires unan­i­mous approval by mem­ber states and amend­ing the treaties, she said, not­ing that EU lead­ers had agreed in July to instead estab­lish a bud­get pro­tec­tion mechanism.

Min­is­ter Var­ga said mem­ber states that need­ed assis­tance should be giv­en help as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. She insist­ed that the Ger­man presidency’s lat­est pro­pos­al threat­ened to under­mine this by reopen­ing issues that had already been set­tled among the EU lead­ers. “This is the goal of the fru­gal mem­ber states which nev­er actu­al­ly want­ed to sup­port Euro­pean economies in get­ting back on their feet,” the min­is­ter said. “We sup­port strength­en­ing the pro­tec­tion of the EU bud­get but the Ger­man pro­pos­al is ill-equipped to do so,” she said. “We must get back to the Euro­pean Council’s July deci­sion and pur­sue talks on a gen­uine bud­get pro­tec­tion mechanism.”

Source: abouthun​gary​.hu