On Wednesday, the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted to put the proposal on launching a monitoring procedure against Hungary on the agenda of the next session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The committee members supported the motion in a vote of 21 to 20. The circumstances of the Committee's decision raise serious procedural and substantial concerns.

Contrary to the previously established practices, only one of the rapporteurs attended the session of the Monitoring Committee to put forward the proposal  because Jana Fischerová, the other rapporteur, had resigned claiming that the report on Hungary was seriously biased and one-sided. Moreover, the Committee will only vote on the chapters of the proposal on Thursday, which is a deviation from normal procedure, as this vote should have preceded Wednesday’s final vote. This may cast a shadow on the transparency of the working methods of the Committee.

Another flaw of the proposal is that it did not incorporate the results of Hungary’s still ongoing consultations with the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe and with the European Commission; moreover, the proposal disregarded the fact that the Hungarian Parliament has not finished discussing the legal provisions related to the fourth amendment to Hungary's Fundamental Law.

Because of these serious concerns, Foreign Minister János Martonyi sent a letter to PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon requesting the postponement of the decision, and Justice Minister Tibor Navracsics also sent a letter to the Chairman of the Monitoring Committee, Andreas Herkel, with the same request. On behalf of the Hungarian Government, both ministers expressed their readiness to continue an open and constructive dialogue.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)