The EU Commission cannot help but use the new instrument to protect the EU budget against Hungary.
The evidence that in Hungary the misuse of money from the community budget is not being prosecuted by a politically dependent judiciary is so strong that Brussels would lose all credibility in the disputes over violations of the rule of law in other member states if the Orbán government did it get away scot-free.
The timing is delicate, with EU unity arguably ever more important given Russia's war on Ukraine - and Orbán could block further sanctions against Moscow.
Without a doubt he would be unscrupulous enough.
Nevertheless, he will think about such a step very carefully.
Because his only ally in the EU, the national conservative Polish government, does not take a joke in the fight against Russian imperialism.
Warsaw is meanwhile trying to use the slipstream of the war in other ways: the government wants to put the dispute over its judicial reform and its unpleasant financial consequences behind it with cosmetic concessions without changes in essence.
Even after the happy outcome of the elections in France, the EU is not only threatened by authoritarianism from outside.