Using the “Poland method,” the European Union elite played a pivotal role in toppling the conservative Polish government by freezing billions in EU funds. Once Donald Tusk came to power, the money began flowing again.
Now, the same method is set to be used against Hungary in the run-up to national elections next year.
The European Commission published its 2025 Rule of Law Report on Tuesday, before which European Commissioner for Justice Michael McGrath told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland that they are concerned about the situation in Hungary and are ready to use all means available to force Hungary to fall in line.
What does that mean in practice? Withholding billions in cohesion funds from Hungary, and possibly much more in the future.
“As far as Hungary is concerned, the Commission remains seriously concerned about the rule of law situation,” the EU justice commissioner said before the report was published, as cited by the Mandiner news portal.
McGrath noted that various tools were at Brussels’ disposal to take action, from freezing EU funds to referring the case to the European Court of Justice. The rule of law, he said, “means justice instead of arbitrariness, and trust instead of fear.” He said he refused to allow it to be deemed some form of “abstract value.”
The EC’s report targets the Hungarian judiciary, which they say is compromised by political influence, and Hungary’s case allocation and appointment system, which they deem insufficiently transparent. They considered that progress had been made in terms of corruption, but they found the anti-corruption institutions, including the Integrity Authority, insufficiently effective.
The EU also claims that the allocation of public funds and EU funds is not transparent.
The document makes note of the fact that Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranks Hungary as the “most corrupt country” in the EU.
TI has long been funded in part by George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. As Remix News has reported in the past, the organization is highly partisan, and often ranks Hungary on par with corruption as war-torn African countries.
Regarding domestic media, it is claimed that “state advertising distorts the market” and that opposition media is marginalized. No mention of countries like Germany, where media outlets are raided by police, including the publisher and journalists, and then completely erased from the internet, only for courts to later say the entire action was illegal.
Moreover, the room for civil society organizations to maneuver has narrowed, it reads, and oversight of the executive branch is lacking.
In addition to the report on 2024, the document also reports on the consultation with civil society organizations in 2025. Based on the reports of the NGOs, they write about the shortcomings of the institutional system for preventing corruption and the weakening of independent institutions.
Given its findings and what it believes to be a worsening situation in Hungary, the EU will continue to withhold some €6.3 billion in cohesion funds.
“Stakeholders note that the distribution of public funding continues to be uneven, untransparent, privileging government-aligned organizations against CSOs critical of government policies, which are not able to secure public funding in Hungary. Overall, no progress has been made on the recommendation and the situation has instead further deteriorated.”
The Commission’s report was prepared based on the report of a five-member delegation, the LIBE committee, who had visited Hungary. Mandiner has called out the credibility of the report, partly due to those in the delegation. The Green Party’s Tineke Strik, whom the Center for Fundamental Rights called “a real hard-line globalist,” is one member of the delegation, alongside left-wing and liberal politicians, including Michał Wawrykiewicz from the European People’s Party, who gave a speech at a Tisza Party event and is a big supporter of opposition leader Péter Magyar.
The LIBE committee’s visit has been criticized, as the delegation met primarily with opposition media outlets and organizations and also because no video or audio recording was allowed during a meeting with Hungary’s Office for the Protection of Sovereignty. The action prevented “Hungarian and European citizens from getting a credible and accurate picture of the conceptual procedure being conducted by Brussels against Hungary,” according to the Hungary’s Office for the Protection of Sovereignty.
In response to the report, Hungary’s Nézőpont Institute has come out with its own report, calling on Brussels to abide by the rule of law as well. It highlighted four main areas of particular concern when it comes to EU institutions: unchecked corruption, persistent conflicts of interest, opaque funding practices regarding NGOs, and the entrenched double standards applied by various EU bodies.
