Europe’s chief justice slams Orbán

The EU’s top judge has warned that entrenched corruption and political interference in national judiciaries pose a “serious threat” to the bloc’s democratic foundations, taking several thinly veiled swipes at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

Speaking Monday evening at a symposium in Brussels, Koen Lenaerts repeatedly invoked recent rule-of-law battles involving Hungary and Poland – though he mostly avoided naming them directly. Both Parliament President Roberta Metsola and Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath were in the audience.

He stressed that EU funds must be used “so that they do not serve to enrich an oligarchy surrounding a ruler or a ruling party,” taking a swipe at Orbán, who critics say has transformed Hungary into an openly corrupt state based on patronage.

The judge’s comments come at a sensitive moment for Orbán. Next spring Hungary will hold parliamentary elections amid budget pressures that have been exacerbated by the EU’s decision to freeze some funding over corruption and rule-of-law concerns.

Orbán’s Fidesz party has been steadily losing ground to TISZA, a centre-right force led by Péter Magyar, a charismatic 44-year-old Fidesz defector who poses the biggest threat to Orbán’s hold on power since he retook control of the government in 2010.

As president of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), Lenaerts, who is Belgian, usually avoids political commentary. But his keynote went far beyond dry legal analysis.

While cautioning that he couldn’t “be more concrete in [his] office,” he described a situation that sounded a lot like Hungary, where “public procurement is systematically refused to out-of-state business, favouring the businesses around the leader or the governing party, the leading party.”

In 2021, the Commission suspected Budapest of “systemic fraud” in connection with procurement related to the EU’s pandemic recovery fund.

Hungary without European prosecutor

Lenaerts argued that participation in the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) – the EU body that investigates and prosecutes crimes involving the Union’s funds – should be mandatory for all countries that receive EU funds.

He described how in some member states probes by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) – the EU agency tasked with detecting misuse of EU money – “end up in the wastebasket,” lamenting that “the whole system is closed.”

Hungary, notably, has refused to join the EPPO, even though it has no formal opt-out from EU justice cooperation — leaving OLAF dependent on national prosecutors in Budapest, who critics say rarely act on its findings.

Hungary still has billions of EU funds frozen over disputes with Brussels over rule of law talks over the bloc’s next long-term budget pick up steam. Hungary has repeatedly clashed with Brussels over rule of law-issues, most recently regarding a proposed ban on LGBTQI content. In June, the advocate general of the EU court, which Lenaerts presides over, argued that the ban violated EU law. A final ruling will come later.

On Friday, Orbán traveled to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, who granted Hungary a carve-out from US sanctions on Russian oil. The two also agreed on a vaguely defined “financial shield,” Orbán said.

The US is prepared to protect Hungary’s economy should Brussels punish Budapest further, the Hungarian leader said.