{"id":17310,"date":"2018-09-12T14:24:45","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T14:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/allworldsnews.com\/worlds\/what-sanctions-can-the-eu-impose-on-hungary\/45"},"modified":"2018-09-12T14:24:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T14:24:45","slug":"what-sanctions-can-the-eu-impose-on-hungary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/?p=17310","title":{"rendered":"What sanctions can the EU impose on Hungary?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Opposition Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Opposition protesters take to the streets after elections in Hungary <\/p>\n

The European Parliament has voted to pursue disciplinary action against Hungary under Article 7 of the European Union treaty.<\/p>\n

The right-wing Hungarian government has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities and the rule of law – charges denied by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.<\/p>\n

Article 7 is designed to protect the European Union’s fundamental values.<\/p>\n

It sets out ways various EU bodies can act if they believe those values are at risk, or have been seriously breached.<\/p>\n

These values are founded on respect for:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It highlighted concerns about freedom of expression, academic freedom, judicial independence, the electoral system and the treatment of minorities as well as asylum seekers and refugees.<\/p>\n

It described the country as being “at clear risk of a serious breach of EU values” and called for a full parliamentary vote on the matter.<\/p>\n

The only other occasion the EU has formally resorted to Article 7 is over Poland, where there’s been an ongoing dispute with its authorities over judicial reforms – but there has been no parliamentary vote on the issue. <\/p>\n

EU votes for disciplinary action against Hungary In depth – Viktor Orban’s Hungary Nationalism in heart of Europe needles EU <\/p>\n

The EU had voiced concern about the independence of the courts following Polish government moves to change or remove judges.<\/p>\n

It was the executive, the EU Commission, which decided to act in that case, invoking Article 7 in December 2017 after concluding that there was “a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law in Poland”.<\/p>\n

The arguments with Poland are continuing.<\/p>\n

Image copyright EPA Image caption There’s been concern about changes to the judiciary in Poland <\/p>\n

Preventative action<\/h2>\n

It’s important to make clear that Article 7 is a process rather than an end in itself.<\/p>\n

And the process is divided into separate parts, with one not necessarily dependent on the other.<\/p>\n

Under the preventative mechanism, the commission, the European Council or the Parliament can start the Article 7 process to determine whether there is a “clear risk of a serious breach of EU values”.<\/p>\n

The parliament has to agree by two-thirds of those MEPs who take part in the vote, which must also be an absolute majority of all MEPs, to start the process.<\/p>\n

It then goes to the EU Council – the heads of government of the member states.<\/p>\n

The council must agree by a four-fifths majority that there is a risk of breaching EU values (and then recommend specific actions to be taken by the country concerned).<\/p>\n

European Parliament sources say there is no particular timeframe for this process – and that, in theory, the council could do nothing and simply ignore the vote by the parliament.<\/p>\n

Sanctions<\/h2>\n

Under the sanctions mechanism enshrined in Article 7, only the council or the commission can trigger the process.<\/p>\n

The council then has to decide unanimously that “a serious and persistent breach of EU values has taken place”.<\/p>\n

It has to also get the agreement of two-thirds of the parliament to this. <\/p>\n

Once that has been done, the council has the power to suspend some of the country’s membership rights – such as voting rights in the council itself.<\/p>\n

However, it is not clear what other rights can be suspended.<\/p>\n

And the council can only take this ultimate step by a qualified majority amounting to 72% of member states.<\/p>\n

At the moment, this is not the course of action being proposed in the case of Hungary, although in theory that route remains open to the EU at a later stage.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Read more from Reality Check<\/p>\n

Send us your questions<\/p>\n

Follow us on Twitter<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Opposition protesters take to the streets after elections in Hungary The European Parliament has voted to pursue disciplinary action against Hungary under Article 7 of the European Union treaty. The right-wing Hungarian government has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities and the rule of law – charges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7965,7899,1735,642,7931],"class_list":["post-17310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-worlds","tag-article-7","tag-european-parliament","tag-european-union","tag-hungary","tag-viktor-orban"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pornvas.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}