VdL To Come Under Pressure To Sanction HU & PL On Rule Of Law

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is set to come under increasing pressure in the weeks and months ahead to impose financial and legal penalties on the gov'ts of Hungary and Poland for breaches of the EU's rule of law standards. This comes after an ECJ ruling released this morning stated that the EU can cut structural funding to nations experiencing issues with their rule of law standards.

• For a number of years, the actions of the gov'ts in Budapest and Warsaw have come in for criticism for alleged breaches of EU rule of law standards relating to issues such as judicial independence and media freedoms.
• MEPs from the centre and left of the political spectrum are likely to seek to pressure von der Leyen to hit both gov'ts with sizeable cuts to their structural funding budgets.
• However, there are concerns within some areas of EU leadership that hitting both gov'ts hard could have the opposite effect from intended insofar as the sanctions pushing both countries further away from the EU rather than bringing them back in line with liberal democratic values.