Changes from plenary report to adopted text

RemovedSUGGESTIONS

RemovedThe Committee on Constitutional Affairs calls on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

RemovedA. whereas the European Union’s founding values include the respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of people belonging to minorities (Article 2 TEU) and whereas these values are universal and common to the Member States;

RemovedB. whereas the free participation of a fully developed civil society is a key aspect of any democratic decision-making process;

RemovedC. whereas Union legislation is the product of collective decision-making in which all Member States participate;

RemovedD. whereas, in accordance with Article 9 TEU and Article 20 TFEU, every person holding the nationality of a Member State is a citizen of the Union; whereas the European Citizenship shall be additional to and not replace national citizenship;

RemovedE. Whereas AFCO Committee visited Hungary in November 2016;

Removed1. Strongly emphasises that all Member States share and must uphold the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU, as these values are the core values of the European Union;

Removed2. Recalls that the content of Article 2 TEU reflects binding and well-established principles of international law endorsed by all the Member States; stresses, therefore, that the full respect, protection and promotion of the rule of law, democracy and human rights represents a common responsibility and an obligation arising from the fact of simply belonging to the international community;

Removed3. Reminds that, according to Article 49 TEU, candidate countries must demonstrate that they satisfy the Copenhagen criteria in order to become members of the Union and the Commission has a duty to demand full compliance with them; stresses that, once they become members of the Union, Member States are under a corresponding obligation to respect and to ensure the protection of the rule of law and its constitutive elements, and that the principle of mutual trust enshrined in Union law does not exonerate Member States from evaluating the compliance of other Member States with Union law and particularly with the fundamental rights recognised by Union law;

Removed4. Recalls that the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU are protected by the procedure established in Article 7 is of the opinion, however, that the Union should be equipped with an additional and more-structured framework to monitor and assess the respect and promotion of the principles set out in Article 2 TEU;

Removed5. Reiterates its call on the Commission to make full use of the expertise of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in monitoring the situation of fundamental rights in the Union by proposing a revision of the FRA’s founding Regulation in order to grant it wider and more independent powers, as well as greater human and financial resources;

Removed6. Recalls that the Venice Commission defined the essential characteristics of the rule of law as legality, legal certainty and prohibition of arbitrariness, access to justice, respect for human rights, non-discrimination and equality before the law; shares the concerns expressed by the Venice Commission in its opinions on Hungarian legislation since 2011, including the opinions on the Fundamental Law and the amendment thereto; reiterates that the Venice Commission concluded in its opinion on the fourth and most current amendment to the Fundamental Law of Hungary on 17 June 2013 that the measures taken amount to a threat to constitutional justice and to the supremacy of the basic principles contained in the Fundamental Law of Hungary; recalls that Hungary recognises the Venice Commission since its accession to the Council of Europe in 1990;

Removed7. Points out that the Venice Commission stated in its opinion on Act XXV of 4 April 2017, concerning the Amendment of Act CCIV of 2011 on National Tertiary Education, that such act appears to be highly problematic from the standpoint of rule of law and fundamental rights principles and guarantees to foreign universities who are already established in Hungary and have been lawfully operating there for many years; further reminds that the European Commission decided to refer Hungary to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the grounds that its National Tertiary Education Law as amended on 4 April 2017 disproportionally restricts Union and third country universities in their operations and needs to be brought back in line with Union law;

Removed8. Reiterates its deep concern about the recent developments in Hungary which are jeopardising the rule of law and hampering the application of the principles stated in Article 2 TEU, including, inter alia, those concerning the functioning of the constitutional system, the independence of the judiciary and of other institutions and the systematic removal of checks and balances, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, academic freedom, the human rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, freedom of assembly and association, the right to equal treatment, social rights, the defence of civil society organisations, the rights of people belonging to minorities, including Roma, Jews and LGBTI people;

Removed9. Notes that the term citizenship itself entails a clear political will to respect the equality of individuals; underlines that the values and principles on which the Union is based define a sphere with which every European citizen can identify himself or herself, irrespective of political or cultural differences linked to national identity; is concerned about the public use of nationalist ideas based on exclusive identities coming from Hungarian officials;

Removed10. Notes that the Venice Commission stated that the limitation of the role of the Hungarian Constitutional Court leads to a risk that it may negatively affect the separation of powers, the protection of human rights and the rule of law; is particularly concerned about the reintroduction, at the constitutional level, of provisions that should fall within the scope of ordinary law, and which have already been found to be unconstitutional, with the aim to avoid constitutional review; recommends a review of the functioning and powers of the National Judicial Council in order to ensure that it can fulfil its role as Hungary’s independent body of judicial self-government, and calls for the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court to be restored in full;

Removed11. Is worried about the shrinking space for civil society organisations and the attempts to control NGOs and to restrict their ability to carry out their legitimate work, such as the adoption of the so-called “Stop Soros” legislative package; recalls that the Venice Commission stated in its "opinion on the draft law on the transparency of organisations receiving support from abroad" (endorsed on 17 June 2017) that such a law would cause a disproportionate and unnecessary interference with the freedoms of association and expression, the right to privacy, and the prohibition of discrimination;

Removed12. Deeply regrets the antagonistic and misleading rhetoric sometimes used by the Hungarian institutions when referring to the European Union; and the deliberate choice of the authorities to adopt legislation directly breaching Union values; recalls the objectives set out in Article 3(1) and (2) TEU that Hungary agreed to attain when joining the Union in 2004; reminds that joining the European Union was a voluntary act based on the national sovereignty, with a broad consensus across the Hungarian political spectrum;

Removed13. Emphasises that the infringement procedure has shown its limits in addressing systematic violations of Union values because of its main focus on technical matters which allow governments to propose formal remedies while keeping the laws breaching Union law in force; believes that in the case of the violation of the principle of sincere cooperation embodied in Article 4 TEU, the Commission has no legal obstacle preventing it from building on infringement cases to identify a pattern amounting to a breach of Article 2 TEU;

Removed14. Believes that, if a serious and persistent breach of the rule of law by a Member State has been established, the Commission should use every tool at its disposal to defend the fundamental values on which the Union is founded, including the activation of Article 7 TEU; recalls that its resolution of 25 October 2016 with recommendations to the Commission on the establishment of an EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights asked the Commission to submit by September 2017 a proposal for the conclusion of a Union Pact for democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (EU Pact for DRF); regrets that this proposal has not yet come and stresses that there is an urgent need to set-up an efficient mechanism to safeguard Union's fundamental values since there is an inconsistency between the obligations incumbent on candidate countries under the Copenhagen criteria and the application of those criteria by the Member States after joining the Union; highlights that an appropriate response to the violation of Union fundamental values requires a combination of adequate legal instruments and political will;

Removed15. Believes that the current situation in Hungary represents a clear risk of a serious breach of the values referred to in Article 2 TEU and warrants the launch of the procedure set out in Article 7(1) TEU;