The EU said Wednesday that it had launched action against Hungary after Budapest passed laws it says are intended to “protect Hungary’s sovereignty” and curb foreign influence.
Critics say the laws are the latest move by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government to silence opponents ahead of crucial EU and Hungarian municipal elections in June.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said it had sent a letter of formal notice to Hungary for violations of EU law.
The move is known in EU jargon as an infringement procedure, and Hungary has two months to reply to the letter.
The move is likely to further raise tensions between the European Union and Orban. Brussels already has placed a hold on 22 billion euros ($24 billion) in EU funds for Budapest over rule-of-law concerns.
Budapest regularly claims that the European Union and other countries, in particular the United States, back domestic opposition groups with funding to influence voters in Hungary.
Hungary’s laws, passed last year, criminalise foreign funding of election campaigns and establish a new Sovereignty Protection Office that has broad investigative powers.
Brussels considers that Hungary’s step violates several elements of EU law, “in particular when it comes to the principle of democracy and the electoral rights of EU citizens”, commission spokeswoman Anitta Hipper said.
“The set-up of a new authority with wide-ranging powers and a strict regime of monitoring, enforcement and sanctioning also risks to seriously harm the democracy in Hungary,” Hipper said at a press conference in Brussels.
– Budapest ‘standing by’ law –
Orban’s governing Fidesz party has argued that the law will end “electoral trickery” after accusations against opposition parties that they received funds from a US-based NGO ahead of 2022 elections.
Government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs posted Wednesday on X that Brussels was “attacking” its sovereignty law “because it is designed to prevent foreign influence”.
“The government is standing by the Sovereignty Protection Act,” he wrote, adding that “the tightening of the law was approved by 98 percent of the Hungarian people in the national consultation” conducted between November and January.
Only 1.5 million of Hungary’s eight million voters had returned the survey, however.
Since 2015, Hungary’s government has frequently used such questionnaires, backed by extensive multimedia campaigns, to claim legitimacy for its positions and to attack EU policies.
The Council of Europe rights body has urged Hungary to abandon the laws, saying they posed a significant risk, while NGOs including Amnesty International have also voiced alarm.
The United States has said it is concerned the laws will be used to intimidate critics.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in December that the law was “inconsistent with our shared values of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”.
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