‘Brussels today is crossing the Rubicon. At noon, a written vote will be launched that will cause irreparable damage to the Union,’ Viktor Orbán wrote on Facebook in response to the European Union’s attempt to freeze Russian assets indefinitely by qualified majority.
On Thursday the EU approved a legal mechanism that would permanently freeze 210 billion euros worth of Russian state assets in Europe, bypassing Hungary’s veto. According to index.hu, the new mechanism abolishes the current rules requiring EU member states to renew sanctions unanimously every six months.
‘With one stroke of the pen, Brussels is abolishing the unanimity requirement, in blatant contravention of the law,’ the Hungarian prime minister said. He added that ‘with today’s decision, the rule of law in the European Union is disappearing and European leaders are placing themselves above the rules’.
The European Commission, he said, does not oversee compliance with the EU treaties but ‘systematically rapes European law’. According to Orbán, the reason is the Union’s desire to ‘continue the apparently unwinnable war in Ukraine’.
