Chancellor Angela Merkel Urged to Protect the Union Budget
The letter says that governments and EU institutions have a responsibility to act to address the economic damage caused by Covid-19.
A slew of human rights and civil society groups has written a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, urging her to maintain rule of law and the general regime of conditionality for the protection of the Union budget.
The letter, dated 3 December, states that in November two EU Member States had blocked the adoption of the Multi-Annual Financial Framework (MFF) and the Covid-19 Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
It was an attempt to prevent the adoption of conditionalities for the protection of the EU budget from breaches of the principles of the rule of law. This move has created a grave political crisis for the European Union (EU).
The letter adds that governments and EU institutions have a responsibility to act to address the economic damage caused by Covid-19 and facilitate a swift recovery for the economy of the Union.
But they also have a responsibility to uphold the values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty, including the rule of law, and to ensure that breaches to these principles do not affect the Union budget.
“We, therefore, urge you not to reopen, delay or weaken the implementation of the proposed regulation on conditionality following the pressure from leaders that refuse to uphold and enforce Europe’s rule of law values – even if it means delinking the adoption of the conditionality regulation from the EU budget or by-passing the current threat of veto,” the groups said in their letter.
The current Article 7 procedures, aimed at safeguarding the EU’s fundamental values, underway on Hungary and Poland, must also not be used as bargaining chips.
It is not a surprise that governments blocking the EU budget include those facing scrutiny under the Article 7 procedure. In Poland, government reforms seriously threaten judicial independence and undermine access to justice.
In Hungary, the government has undermined the rule of law, imposed restrictions on associations and weakened academic freedom, and eroded media freedom and media pluralism – putting at risk the effectiveness and transparency over the spending of EU funds. Over the last decade, Hungary has been embroiled in several corruption scandals involving EU funds.
Chancellor Merkel has been asked in the letter to uphold the principles enshrined in the Treaty and ensure that the EU is equipped as soon as possible with a conditionality mechanism that protects EU funding from harmful consequences of rule of law deficits.
