European Parliament tries to block Hungary’s EU presidency

On a pro-government news site, experts dismiss the planned resolution as unpleasant but juridically irrelevant.

Next week, the European Parliament will once again vote on a resolution condemning the Hungarian government, this time to declare that Hungary is unfit for the rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2024. In a tweet on Wednesday, government spokesman Zoltán Kovács dismissed the draft as ’another attack on Hungary by the Soros Network. They are constantly attacking our country with “rolling dollars” to the Hungarian opposition, with Brussels procedures, biased reports, and shady attempts to influence Hungarian elections’.

On Mandiner, Mátyás Varga quotes unnamed experts from the Mathias Corvinus Collegium brain trust who predict that the draft will be adopted by a majority of MEPs next week but add that it will have no binding force on any EU institution. The European Parliament has no voice in decisions over the rotating presidency, they remark. The experts quoted by Mandiner also point out that under the EU treaties, the presidency is based on the principle of ‘equal rotation’. Therefore, even if the order of successive presidents may be changed, no member country can possibly be excluded from assuming the rotating presidency. The unnamed experts take it for granted that the resolution will find Hungary guilty on several counts and describe the draft as ‘the usual EP shopping list’.

Tags: EP, EU presidency