Retour au portail Europarl

Choisissez la langue de votre document :

  • bg - български
  • es - español
  • cs - čeština
  • da - dansk
  • de - Deutsch
  • et - eesti keel
  • el - ελληνικά
  • en - English
  • fr - français
  • ga - Gaeilge
  • hr - hrvatski
  • it - italiano
  • lv - latviešu valoda
  • lt - lietuvių kalba
  • hu - magyar
  • mt - Malti
  • nl - Nederlands
  • pl - polski
  • pt - português
  • ro - română
  • sk - slovenčina
  • sl - slovenščina
  • fi - suomi
  • sv - svenska
Ce document n'est pas disponible dans votre langue. Il vous est proposé dans une autre langue parmi celles disponibles dans la barre des langues.

 Index 
 Texte intégral 
Verbatim report of proceedings
Tuesday, 2 July 2013 - Strasbourg

Situation of fundamental rights: standards and practices in Hungary (debate)
MPphoto
 

  Rui Tavares, rapporteur. − Mr President, as I know that Hungarian citizens usually listen to these debates, I will start with some words in Hungarian.

Az Unió az emberi méltóság tiszteletben tartása, a szabadság, a demokrácia, az egyenlőség, a jogállamiság, valamint az emberi jogok – ideértve a kisebbségekhez tartozó személyek jogait – tiszteletben tartásának értékein alapul.

These words are the words in Article 2 of our Treaty on European Union. The Union is founded upon the values of respect for human dignity, the rule of law, democracy, liberty, equality, fundamental rights, and the rights of people coming from minorities. These words are not a bureaucratic invention; these words are not an imposition; they are the choice of our Member States. Hungary, in particular, not only signed these words, Hungary wrote these words with other Member States. So the question for our debate here today is: do we take these words seriously or not?

In the European Parliament we take them very seriously, we have done work for over a year examining over 500 changes to Hungarian law by the government, that touch all the cornerstones of democracy – the parliament, the media, the judiciary, the electoral law, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the data protection authority; the constitution alone was changed twelve times, then a new constitution was made, then four changes to this constitution, in one year. Not only the pace and the scope of the changes were unusual, but the general trend is one towards concentration of power with the majority and the government. Many international institutions, including the EU and the Council of Europe, have expressed their concerns about this, of course. Democracy is about the rule of the majority but democracy is not majoritarianism, meaning that in a democracy you have to respect the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary and fundamental rights.

We have had a permanent dialogue with the Government of Hungary. We have updated the working documents that we have written with all the political groups, also with comments by the Government of Hungary, and this is also a dialogue that we want to continue after this report is approved.

We reach a very important conclusion in this report: that the changes in Hungary have been systemic, that they have a general trend and this general trend moves away from the values in Article 2. This is a very serious conclusion and one that needs to be taken seriously by all institutions concerned: by us, by the European Commission, which we ask to provide a rule of law mechanism and an Article 2 alarm agenda to deal with this, and by the Hungarian Government, to whom we address 30 general recommendations for the future that of course they will follow with their own timetable objectives and in a dialogue, or let us say a trialogue, with the three institutions.

We also ask for an Article 2 trialogue with the European Council or the Council of the EU. Furthermore, we acknowledge that as a political institution the European Parliament should be compensated by a non-political body that we could turn to. This we call the Copenhagen High-Level Group, in order to ensure the continuity of the Copenhagen criteria. This means that we are very demanding in the requirements that we make of candidate countries, but we have to ensure that we apply the same standards to ourselves.

Let me make very clear what this is not about. Europe is a diverse place. It has republics and monarchies, federal and unitary states, unicameral and bicameral parliaments. All this is possible, within compatibility with the values of democracy outlined in the Treaties. We not only respect this diversity, we cherish this diversity; but what concerns us is whether these values are compatible, or whether these changes are compatible or not with our values. The European Parliament has to be here to defend, to protect and to respect these values, because Europe is not only a club of democracies; we are also a union of democracy.

 
Avis juridique - Politique de confidentialité