I was asked by Euronews about the possible Hungarian plans on getting rid of the financial punishment of historical size by the Court of Justice of the European Union some two years ago.
Seemingly, the orbanist shame still lives with Hungary. The current prime minister, Péter Magyar (once himself a minion of Viktor Orbán, settled in various, corruption-related well-paid positions) seems to carry on the fallen flag proudly: he has always said how great the migration policy of Viktor Orbán has been and that he does not intend to change it. At the same time, it is entertaining to see him try to make the past disappear, the question is, if the governments of the member states and the leadership of the EU is willing to play the same Ibsenic game, that the Hungarian electorate was.
But the real problem is this: the European Commission is not in the position of cancelling or erasing legal obligations established by the Court. And reagardless of what anybody thinks or wishes to think about possible political favours from Ursula von der Leyen towards Magyar,the Europan Parliament or any member state government can take the Commission to the Court for any unlawful or dubious political step. As You can read in the article, there are already voices raised against this.
The article with my opinion can be found here. (In Hungarian here…)
Practically the only chance of doing something with this fine (with a daily 1 million Euros added until that time), which means that Hungary does not have to actually pay AND the judgment of the Court remains intact, is the following: the Europan Commission plans an extra amount (which equals to the debt at that point of time) available to Hungary in the next MFF (“7 years budget”), and after it is adopted, withdraws that amount immediately as part of the offsetting procedure, mentioned by the spokesperson of the Commission in the video above. Seems easy? Well, if all member states do agree to it, then it will be easy. We will see how that will go.
Lattmann Tamás honlapja 