EP committee to vote on Hungary rule of law report on Monday

The European Parliament’s civil liberties committee has said it will vote on a draft report criticising the state of the rule of law in Hungary next Monday.

As we wrote yesterday, the Hungarian parliament on Wednesday passed the “Stop Soros” package of laws that penalise activities in support of illegal migration. The bills contain amendments to the penal code that sanction entities or organisations that “facilitate illegal migration” or help with the asylum application procedures of migrants arriving from safe countries, read more details HERE.

Last spring, the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) was asked to prepare a report on Hungary with a view to holding an EP vote on launching the first steps of Article 7, which suspends voting rights. The committee released the draft report in April.

More than 260 amendment proposals have been submitted to the draft report, Green MEP Judith Sargentini, the author of the report, said in a debate on the amendments to the report in a session of the LIBE committee on Wednesday.

Sargentini expressed regret over the Hungarian parliament’s recent passage of a government-initiated constitutional amendment and the “Stop Soros” package of laws that penalise activities in support of illegal migration.

In connection with the latter, she said the Hungarian government had been issued a “very humble” request not to pass the legislation until the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission released its opinion on it this coming Friday. But the Hungarian authorities had not fulfilled it, she added.

Sargentini said certain amendment proposals to the draft report would now be changed to reflect the new situation in Hungary.

Poland’s Michal Boni of the European People’s Party (EPP) said the report was not aimed against Hungary and was solely about the Hungarian government and that “it has violated a number of rules”.