European Parliament puts pressure on Commission

This is the first time that the European Parliament has brought an action against the Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Friday, October 29, David Sassoli, its president, announced that he had taken action against the community executive for non-application of the regulation on the conditionality of the payment of European funds to respect for the rule of law.

This mechanism, in application since 1er January, allows the Commission to deprive a Member State of funds whose practices threaten the proper use of public funds. Several countries, in the forefront of which the frugal (the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Denmark) as well as the European Parliament, had made it a sine qua non for the adoption of the European recovery plan of 750 billion euros, which complements the multiannual Community budget (2021-2027) of 1,074 billion euros.

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Poland and Hungary have challenged its legality before the EU Court of Justice and the 27 have pledged that it will not be activated until the judges in Luxembourg have ruled. The judgment is expected at the end of this year or early 2022. For the time being, the mechanism of conditionality to the rule of law has therefore not been activated. “We cannot ask Warsaw and Budapest to respect the rule of law if we ourselves do not respect it. The Twenty-Seven have undertaken to await the judgment of the Luxembourg Court. We must respect our commitments ”, explains a diplomat.

Decide on legality

In recent weeks, relations between the EU, on the one hand, and Poland, whose independence of the judiciary is compromised, and Hungary, where the fight against corruption leave much to be desired, have deteriorated. still degraded. The Polish constitutional court, close to PiS, the conservative party in power, even challenged, on October 7, the primacy of European law, opening an unprecedented crisis between Brussels and Warsaw.

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David Sassoli knows that his appeal to the Luxembourg Court will not be heard before the European judges rule on the legality of the conditionality mechanism. “If the Commission activates the rule of law mechanism before the procedure comes to an end, this appeal will no longer be necessary”, we recognize in the European Parliament. This last “Puts political pressure. Otherwise nobody will do it, the States hiding behind the officials of the Commission ”, comments Macronist MEP Valérie Hayer.

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