The European Parliament will file a lawsuit against the EU Commission next week for failing to use a new instrument to enforce the rule of law.

A complaint by Parliament against the Commission is only taking place for the third time in the history of the European Union and puts Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a difficult position.

The decision, which the plenary will vote on next week, came after intensive negotiations between the pro-European groups.

In the end, the representatives of a hard line prevailed.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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    According to its resolution text, Parliament “regrets” that the Commission has not complied with its request at the end of March to initiate proceedings into “the most obvious cases of rule of law breaches in the EU”. This relates to the so-called rule of law conditionality, which was agreed with the EU financial framework for the next seven years and which has been in force since the beginning of the year. According to this, the EU Commission can apply for sanctions against states if it has reasonable suspicions that deficits in the rule of law there are at the expense of the EU budget.

    The most obvious cases are Hungary and Poland.

    Both states have appealed against the new regulation to the European Court of Justice.

    Von der Leyen has assured them that she will not open any proceedings as long as the complaints have not been decided.

    The MPs' action is directed against this.

    The Commission has four months

    It is based on Article 265 of the EU treaties. The procedure provided there requires that Parliament first inform the Commission of its intention to bring an action. The Commission will then have two months to comment. After a period of another two months, the action can be submitted to the European Court of Justice (EUGH). According to the draft resolution, the parliamentary administration should "immediately" initiate the preparations for this. Von der Leyen must now decide whether to take action against Hungary, Poland and possible other states within the four months or whether to initiate a lawsuit. At the beginning of the week, Vice-President Vera Jourova indicated that the Commission could take action this year if the ECJ decides "too late".

    How much pressure Parliament should exert on the Commission was a matter of dispute between the political groups in the European Parliament until the very end. In nightly negotiations, the Liberals, the Greens and the Left pushed through that the lawsuit should be initiated without further delay. “It cannot be that Viktor Orbán will turn Hungary into a dictatorship without any sanction,” said the Green negotiator, Daniel Freund, of the FAZ Von der Leyen must now make a decision: “Either she fights with us for the rule of law - or she remains inactive because of pressure from Hungary and Poland. "

    The decisive factor was that the initially hesitant Social Democrats followed this hard line. This left the Christian-democratic EPP, which was in favor of a delay, in isolation. She joined the majority on Friday morning, but was only able to push through one cosmetic change: the President of Parliament should now be given two weeks before notifying the Commission of the intention to file a complaint. The EPP parliamentary group chairman Manfred Weber told the FAZ on Thursday: “We expect the Commission to present the application guidelines for the rule of law conditionality before the summer break. We want to and will cooperate constructively, which is not compatible with a lawsuit. "