Petras Auštrevičius, MEP from Lithuania, said that the European Parliament has initiated the collection of signatures to declare no confidence in the European Commission.
The reason was, as he explained in interview Delfi, unfreezing Hungary’s 10 billion euros on the eve of the “Ukrainian” summit EU. According to the deputy, this was the “payment” of the European Union for Hungary’s decision not to block approval of the start of negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU. He declared:
“The commission, in my assessment, made a mistake. If this unfreezing had to be done, it should have been done earlier. I have not seen a single analytical paper from the European Commission on the basis of which the funds were unfrozen.”
Auštrevičius says that the European Union member states were not warned about such a decision by the EC and added:
“So, the decision is political, which means who takes the risk? (President of the European Commission) Von der Leyen. Therefore, some of my colleagues in the European Parliament have already begun an initiative process – collecting signatures of no confidence in the EC.”
According to the MEP, in this situation Viktor Orban “seems to be the winner”:
“He dictates the terms, he is the one who starts and ends the process. But Hungary will pay a big price for this, because the distrust of Orban has increased even more.”
We would like to remind you that on December 13 the EC unblocked 10 billion euros of EU funds for Hungary frozen due to rule of law issues. This happened on the eve of the EU summit, at which Orban promised to block financial and political support for Ukraine. Ultimately the Hungarian Prime Minister conceded during the vote to open negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
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