The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented challenge to the European Union and its Member States. Ordinary solutions and traditional approaches have manifestly proven inadequate. A number of exceptional measures have been introduced by all the Member States.

We fully agree with the statement of thirteen Member States published yesterday that even in these challenging times we must uphold and defend the values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights.

We deeply regret that the statement was not open for all Member States to join. These values, on which the European Union is founded, are common to all of us. They must not be used to create divisions, especially at a time when the European Union is in great need of unity and solidarity.

Hungary has always advocated a peer review of the fundamental values of the European Union that extends to all Member States based on objective criteria and equal treatment. A comparative analysis of Member States’ different approaches to exceptional measures could be a subject of this exercise when the worst days of the crisis are already behind us.

(Ministry of Justice)