Brussels Attempts Blackmailing Hungarian Government into Submission

"Brussels is exerting intense political pressure on Hungary, cloaking their demands calling for changes to our migration policy as a kind of political requirement wrapped in a legal garb," Zoltan Lomnici Jr, legal advisor at Szazadveg, told Magyar Nemzet. The EU Court of Justice has ordered Hungary to pay two hundred million euros (about eighty billion forints).

European Parliament session in Strasbourg (Photo: MTI/EPA/Julien Warnand)

Why is Brussels doing this?

The Court argued that the Hungarian government failed to comply with EU asylum rules and violated EU law by creating transit zones. In the legal expert's view, the Court is in fact representing the Brussels position, and is attempting to force Hungary to admit migrants applying the usual manner used by leading bureaucrats in EU institutions: overstepping its powers and abusing the law. The constitutional lawyer says they are doing this because

our country refuses to bow to the decisions in Brussels that would inundate us with illegal immigrants and create migrant ghettos in Hungary.

The constitutional lawyer points out the senselessness of citing "restrictive access" to the international protection procedure in transit zones that have not been in operation for a long time. It is also telling that the Court did not take into account, and in fact, considered as an aggravating circumstance, the still pending proceedings initiated in order to comply with the Fundamental Law of our country.

As for the fine, there are clear requirements laid down in the treaties.

On the one hand, the imposition of a punative fine is, as a general rule, justified only if the breach of obligations based on the failure to comply with the previous judgment persists pending the examination of the facts by the court. As has already been mentioned, this is not the case, inter alia, with transit zones. Also, not parenthetically, Article 260(1) TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) does not lay down a specific time-limit for compliance with the judgment of the European Court of Justice, he pointed out, adding that the Court had also failed to take into account Hungary's compelling and adequate argument in this context that, on the basis of paragraph 55 of the judgment in European Commission v Sweden on May 30, 2013, the Court is to take into account as a mitigating circumstance the fact that Hungary had never before failed to comply with the judgment of the Court.

Do we have to pay?

According to Zoltan Lomnici Jr, the two hundred million euro fine imposed on Hungary by the ECJ means that Hungary will have to pay this amount into the European Union (EU) budget as a penalty for having not complied with EU law. In addition, the Court has imposed a further fine payment of €1 million for each day of delay in complying with the rules until Hungary is in full compliance with the Court's ruling in December 2020.

Although, as a general rule, there is no right of appeal against the decision, it should be noted that in the present case the most flagrant procedural infringement is observable in the discretion of the Court, particularly in the establishment of the amount of the fine.

It is essential in the exercise of its discretion that the Court determine the amount of the punative payment in all cases in such a way that it is appropriate to the circumstances, proportionate to the gravity of the infringement established and to the member state's ability to pay. Seventy times the amount requested by the European Commission does not in any way meet this requirement, the expert pointed out. He added that, according to practice, the Commission monitors payments and, in the event of non-payment, sends periodic reminders.

It is later deducted from the next transfer to the budget of the member state concerned as part of an offsetting procedure.

As this type of financial disentitlement can be deducted from the funds due to member states, it is interesting to consider what happens if a member state happens to deliberately deduct the given amount from EU funds pending payment, or which may have been withheld. It is just as thought-provoking how the almost HUF 750 billion (over EUR 1.8 billion) expenditure that Hungary has voluntarily undertaken to allocate for common border protection can be legally aligned with the current unjust sanction, and how the government could possibly decide to enforce its legitimate claim in this regard in an independent procedure," Zoltan Lomnici Jr explained.

Cover photo: European Parliament session in Strasbourg (Photo: MTI/EPA/Julien Warnand)