T24 Foreign News
The European Union’s legislature, the European Parliament, said in a strong symbolic vote that its member state, Hungary, can no longer be considered a “full democracy”.
The parliament’s resolution described Hungary as “an autocratic hybrid regime with elections”.
81% of the parliamentarians who participated in Thursday’s vote supported the bill, emphasizing the decline of democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law in the country.
Although there was no actual result of the vote, the passing of the bill is thought to increase the pressure on Brussels to continue with the EU not to give Hungary the billions of euros it did not give to Hungary due to corruption.
Hungary wants the delivery of the ‘Fund to combat the effects of Coivd-19’ of 4.64 billion Euros, which was frozen by the European Commission a year ago. The European Commission is also expected to propose cut 70 percent of Hungary’s Structural and Cohesion Fund on Sunday.
French Parliamentarian Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the owner of the bill, pointing out that Hungary may no longer comply with the Copenhagen Criteria, which determines the political conditions of the EU, which is often described as a ‘club of democracies’, said: “Hungary is not a democracy. When we look at how much the rule of law in Hungary has declined. “The Parliament had to take such a step immediately,” he said.
“There is no precedent for the size of parliamentarians in the EP who support this stance,” Delbos-Corfield said. While 433 of the 534 parliamentarians who participated in the voting argued that Hungary no longer has a fully democratic regime, 123 parliamentarians voted against and 28 abstained.
It is thought that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s withdrawal from the European People’s Party, the umbrella group of European right-wing conservative parties, may also have played a role in the decision.
Populist leader Orban, who has been in power since 2010, also won this year’s elections, with his party winning two-thirds of the parliament.