Zoltán Kovács, State Secretary for International Communications and Relations, said proponents of the idea of tying European Union budget allocations to member states’ respect for the rule of law are unable to define what that mechanism should be and are simply waging an ideological battle.
In an op-ed for Brussels-based news portal Euractiv, Kovács said one of the reasons for the current debate around the EU’s next multi-year budget is that certain member states “continue to push for the so-called conditionality mechanism, which would place conditions on budget allocations to member states based on nebulous rule-of-law criteria”.
Kovács wrote that the European Council decisively rejected this idea at a meeting in July. Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he added, affirmed that a rule-of-law mechanism would require the consent of all member states as well as an amendment of the EU treaties. “But none of this deters the rule of law warriors, who wage this campaign like an ideological struggle,” he wrote. “If they cannot use objective criteria and reasonable argument to support their cause, they bend the details to make their case.”
Citing opposition Momentum Movement MEP Anna Donáth’s recent op-ed for Euractiv, Kovács accused the MEP of attempting to “alter the scope of the rule of law debate”. He challenged Donath’s claim that Hungarian democracy “contains no real limitations to the exercise of power” saying that elections remained “the most fundamental means to exercise — and limit — power”.
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