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The European parliament will sue the European Commission over its decision last year to unblock €10bn for Hungary in frozen funds as Brussels sought to convince Budapest to lift its veto over aid to Ukraine.
Party leaders in the European parliament on Thursday agreed to lodge a case at the European Court of Justice that could complicate Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as commission president this year.
Von der Leyen released a third of around €30bn in EU funding Brussels had blocked in a rule of law dispute with Budapest days ahead of a summit at which Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán vetoed a fresh assistance package for Ukraine. He eventually relented in his quest to unblock all his country’s money in February, allowing the €50bn aid to be sent to Kyiv over the next four years.
Roberta Metsola, the parliament’s president, said she would file the legal suit before March 25.
The Greens and other political groups said they would raise the issue in the campaign for EU parliament elections in June. Von der Leyen’s European People’s party (EPP) is expected to come first, giving it the right to nominate her for another five years. But von der Leyen needs a majority of MEPs to endorse her and in 2019 she passed by only nine votes.
The legal case was backed by all the big parties, including the EPP, which pointed out that she had not acted alone, as commissioners from other parties had also agreed to release the money. Nicolas Schmit, the Socialist lead candidate for commission president, signed the letter informing Orbán he would receive the money, while justice commissioner Didier Reynders, of the Liberals, had judged that Budapest had made sufficient reforms to its judicial system to merit the cash.
“We want to make sure that taxpayers’ money has been treated in accordance with the treaties. This is not a political issue for the EPP, this is not an election issue — we only want to have legal clarity,” said Petri Sarvamaa, EPP spokesman on the budget committee.
He added that the decision to provide the funds was taken by the entire college of commissioners.
In February the commission warned Hungary it could take fresh legal action over a new law it said violated EU rules. The Defence of Sovereignty law set up a body with sweeping powers to investigate alleged foreign influence in politics, academia and the media critics that say is modelled on Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Katalin Cseh, a liberal Hungarian MP, said that “by giving in to Viktor Orbán’s blackmail, the European Commission invited every aspiring autocrat to use extortion to have their way”.
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