European Parliament calls for depriving Hungary's right to vote in EU

European Parliament (EP) Vice President Katarina Barli (SPD) has called for Hungary to be stripped of its voting rights in the European Union (EU). According to TASS, she said this on Thursday on the air of the German television and radio station MDR.

Barley argued that Hungary was abusing the EU's unanimity principle as a means of blackmail. However, she added that the country's voting rights could be suspended for violating the rule of law. "Especially in Hungary, one can no longer talk about democratic and legal relations," Barly stressed. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, she said, “has completely taken the country into his own hands piece by piece.”

Major decisions taken at EU level often require the unanimity of all member states. “This principle goes back to the time when the EU consisted of six countries,” said the Vice President of the European Parliament. “Now there are 27 of us, and this is already impractical.” The problem, however, is that the principle of unanimity can only be overturned by a unanimous decision, Barley concluded.

Earlier on Thursday, as DPA reported, citing diplomatic sources in the EU, the European Union refused to impose sanctions against Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia because of the position of Hungary, which opposed the restrictions.