Today at 12 noon, the Hungarian Government handed over a letter to the European Commission, in which it responded to the three questions raised by the EU body concerning the possibility to impose extraordinary taxes, the transfer of court cases and the restrictions on political advertisements – Foreign Minister János Martonyi announced on 7th June 2013.

The Minister pointed out that the purpose of this exchange of administrative letters was to resolve the issues raised earlier by the European Commission with a view to closing the case before the Commission would initiate an infringement procedure.

We are ready – said János Martonyi – to annul, to remove the provision set forth in Paragraph 6 of the Article 37. of the Fundamental Law. The Minister recalled that the provision stipulated that whenever the Hungarian State incurs a payment obligation deriving from a decision of the Constitutional Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union or any other international court and if resources for performing such obligation are insufficient, then the state shall finance this from a special contribution, a tax established for this purpose. “I think that a satisfactory solution has been found, because the European Commission fundamentally objected to the specific reference made in the text to a ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union” – he emphasized.

János Martonyi added that the Government will complement the act on economic stabilization with a provision, which will stipulate that if the state incurs an unexpected financial obligation for which the state budget does not provide enough coverage, then such a contribution will be introduced.
With respect to the transfer of court cases, the Government decided that this provision will be annulled in its entirety, meaning that Paragraph 4 of Article 27 of the Fundamental Law will be removed completely – he said, adding that the work load of Hungarian courts is extremely unbalanced and this provision on the transfer of cases intended to remedy the issue. The Government will have to solve this problem by implementing structural and organizational changes – said the Minister. János Martonyi was on the opinion that the system of automatic transfer of cases resulted in – unjustified – attacks against the whole of the Hungarian judicial system and questioned the independence of the Hungarian judiciary, despite the fact that such a practice of a transfer of court cases also exists in several EU Member States.

With respect to the issue of political advertisement and the restrictions on this, the European Commission only asked how Hungary wished to harmonize legislation and the Fundamental Law in this respect – said the Minister. As he explained, there was a proposal for an amendment, which would have removed the European Parliament elections from the scope of this restriction, but this was finally dropped because there was no reason to justify a different treatment for the Hungarian parliamentary and the European Parliament elections. Therefore the provision of the Fundamental Law will prevail, because the Hungarian regulation cannot be objected – said János Martonyi.

He reminded that the European Commission had earlier publicly and clearly accepted the position that this question does not fall under the competence of the European Union and that Member States shall have the discretion to decide on such issues, as the restrictions concerning electoral campaigns and advertisement.

The Minister recalled that in response to a similar question on restrictions in the Polish electoral law in April 2011, Viviane Reding said that such restrictions do not fall under the scope of European law and that Member States shall be free to decide on such issues. Responding to a similar question in February 2012 on the Bulgarian legislation, Madame Reding gave the same response – added the Minister.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)