Hungary’s emergency law that enables Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to rule by decree without time limits is incompatible with being in the EU, the European Parliament’s liberal group said on Tuesday.
Passing measures ostensibly to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hungarian parliament on Monday voted to give Orban the power to rule by decree with no clear end-date.
The law also introduces jail terms for spreading disinformation about the virus, raising fears it could be used to neuter critics of the government’s approach.
“Viktor Orban has completed his project of killing democracy and the rule of law in Hungary,” said Sophie in’t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament (MEP), who chairs the body’s rule of law group. “Clearly, the actions of the Hungarian government are incompatible with EU membership.”
Dacian Ciolos, a former Romanian prime minister and EU commissioner who now leads the liberal group, said it was “shameful this dreadful corona is abused in such a manner.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement on Tuesday calling for all emergency measures to be “limited to what is necessary and strictly proportionate” and not lasting indefinitely.
“It is of utmost importance that emergency measures are not at the expense of our fundamental principles and values as set out in the treaties,” Von der Leyen said in a statement that did not mention Hungary directly.
The message from Washington was more direct.
US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel said that Orban was making “a blatant power grab in the face of the worst global health crisis in recent history.”
“This legislation marginalizes the Hungarian parliament and allows prime minister Orban to rule by decree like a dictator,” he said.
Hungarian MEP Katalin Cseh last week urged the commission to engage with Budapest over the law last week once it was clear Orban was on course to secure the law with his two-thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament.
“In a democracy, we should never give anyone unlimited powers or unlimited time. It’s not a matter of whether I trust Orban. It’s really about our basic perception of democracy... There should always be checks and balances. Such a law is against my perception of parliamentary democracy,” she said.
Responding to Von der Leyen’s statement, Orban’s spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said the Hungarian state of emergency and extraordinary measures were “congruent with the treaties and the Hungarian constitution, and targeted exclusively at fighting the coronavirus.”
He said the law upheld EU values, rule of law and, press freedom, while accusing critics of being misinformed.
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