Hungary finds it shocking that the European Commission gives in to political, direct and non-transparent pressure, while it is sad that they regard the opinion of the Hungarian opposition and organisations sponsored by the Open Society Foundations as unbiased and impartial, the Justice Minister stated in Luxembourg on Tuesday.

Talking to the Hungarian news agency MTI by telephone during a break of the meeting of European affairs ministers of EU Member States, Judit Varga said the European Commission’s report repeatedly proved that it is none other than a tool for the exertion of political pressure.

Its selection of topics and sources is arbitrary, and it also failed to take the Hungarian written opinions into consideration, she said.

The Minister highlighted that it gives rise to concern also from a legal point of view that Germany which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union brought the European Commission’s recently released rule of law report before the General Affairs Council as last year an initiative regarding this was rejected by the Member States in the absence of a consensus.

Ms. Varga said she was disappointed as despite her proposal supporting transparency, the German presidency did not allow the debate on the rule of law report to be made public.

She added that recently Momentum Member of the European Parliament Anna Donáth admitted that before the presentation of the report, she had consulted with Vice President of the Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourová on an informal basis every three days; something which the EU Commissioner had denied in an interview given to a Czech newspaper.

Ms. Varga said the European Commission’s rule of law report cannot serve as a basis for any rule of law dialogue in the EU.

Experiences to date show that if the Council adopts the Commission’s methods, “double standards will prevail,” she said.

With reference to the orientation debate related to climate protection of the EU summit planned to be held in the second half of the week, Ms. Varga said before the EU identifies further ambitious goals, it is necessary to assess to what extent individual Member States have delivered upon their undertakings so far.

Such Member States intend to impose higher levels of ambition upon others which themselves have failed to perform their own earlier responsibilities, she underlined.

She recalled that in 2014 EU heads of state and government agreed to reduce local emissions of greenhouse gases by 2030 by minimum 40 per cent compared with 1990 at an EU level.

In this regard, she highlighted Hungary proposes that before identifying any increase in levels of ambition, each country should first reach its 40 per cent target undertaken for 2030 in order to eliminate the significant differences that exist at present between levels of attainment in Member States.

It is based on this that we could talk about a fair and just distribution of burdens, and this is how the goal for the European Union to reach a higher emission reduction rate on a pan-European level could be realistically achieved, Ms. Varga added.

(Ministry of Justice/MTI)