Index – Abroad – German Chancellor is concerned about talk of “illiberal democracy” in Hungary

The German Prime Minister gave a one-hour speech at Karolyi University in Prague, discussing how he sees the future of the European Union. According to MTI, Olaf Scholz said: EU enlargement could contribute to the organization’s gradual transition from current unanimous voting – in which member states have vetoes – to majority decision-making.

“There, in the areas where consensus is needed today, the risk of one country vetoing and hindering the development of other countries increases with each additional member state. So I suggested that we move gradually to majority voting in common foreign policy, but also in other areas, such as tax policy.

The Politico According to his report, Olaf Scholz unequivocally referred to Hungary later in the speech – when he spoke of the fact that some member states were increasingly becoming less compliant with European democratic norms – in one of his sentences.

In Central Europe, they talk about illiberal democracy as if this concept weren’t an oxymoron

German chancellor said.

Olaf Schultz said he is concerned about this phenomenon and that he believes that the majority of EU member states want to defend the EU’s democratic values, but they cannot do so in the current legal environment. As one of the possible measures, he referred to the rule of law actions under Article VII, which had been initiated against Hungary earlier, but had been discontinued. (Judit Varga, Minister of Justice, for example Tell Index about this a few weeks ago: “No one remembers the procedure under Article VII, perhaps even in Brussels they do not know what the whole witch-hunt is about.”)

Regarding all this, the German Prime Minister said: The legal regulations of the European Union must be changed so that individual member states cannot prevent the conduct of the procedure according to Article VII. He added that in order to take action against countries that do not meet the requirements of the rule of law, it is possible to put financial pressure on the affected member states. “I don’t think it is pointless to tie the payments to rule of law clauses,” the chancellor concluded, referring to the For questions about the Redemption Fund.

(Cover photo: Olaf Schultz. Photo: Michel Tantossi/Reuters)