Hongarije: EP moet dubbele standaarden voorkomen (en)

The EP is working on a report on the compatibility of Hungary's new constitution and laws with European legislation and values following concerns they could be affecting fundamental rights. The civil liberties committee went on a fact-finding mission to Budapest on 24-26 September. However, the Portuguese Green MEP Rui Tavares, who is in charge of the report, insists Hungary is not being singled out.

Why did the EP decide to send a fact-finding mission to Budapest? What did the delegation do there?

Actually, when prime minister Viktor Orbán i was in Strasbourg last January for a plenary debate, he invited us. That debate was a bit controversial, but everyone agreed that the EP should go to Hungary and see on the ground what the recent legislative and constitutional changes amount to. After that debate the EP voted in favour of a resolution calling for a report on the topic and one of our first tasks was to go to Hungary.

What were the conclusions of the visit?

The Hungarian authorities were cooperative. We were happy to see that representatives of the government, the opposition, NGOs, civil servants from the judiciary and judges received us generously. We asked the questions we needed to ask. The answers were sometimes conflicting, but we had an extremely productive three days.

Some say that the EP applies double standards. It sends a fact-finding mission to Hungary while it closes its eyes in other cases.

Not at all. I've been involved in fundamental rights issues in Lithuania, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, France and in the recent debate about Romania as well. Personally, I favour that the EP takes a more active stance in the case of Romania. While in Hungary, I heard some complaints about double standards. I think that cases that are as serious or even more serious concerning fundamental rights, should be addressed to us. The European Parliament should make sure that there are no double standards and there should be no double standards on the part of the European Commission either. We cannot have discrimination, double standards or scapegoating of member states. So far we have not had that.

How should you avoid the suspicion of having double standards?

The EP will have to think about proper benchmarking, evaluation and follow-up of countries that have joined the EU. We cannot avoid having the feeling that while the Copenhagen criteria are very stringent for accession countries, the EU has lived with the illusion that once a country enters the club, everything is fine in terms of fundamental rights, democracy and pluralism. The EP must make sure that member states are also being watched after accession.

The fact-finding mission was a step in the working process of drafting your report. What is next?

We will now process the information we gathered in Budapest and present the mission report as soon as possible. For the final report we will have to take into account the exchanges between the Hungarian government and the Venice Commission, which will give its opinion this month on recent legislative changes. We are eagerly awaiting this, since we have used their earlier reports in our working documents as well. We will publish further working documents, one about media pluralism and media freedom, probably in November. But there is still no final deadline for the final report.