EP proposal calls for Commission to investigate Hungarian EU commissioner's behaviour

The European Parliament would like to open an investigation into the behaviour of Hungarian EU Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, Népszava reports. The EP submitted a report urging the European Commission to investigate whether the behaviour and policies of the Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement are in line with EU standards.

"The EP remains deeply concerned by reports that the Commissioner for Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement is deliberately seeking to circumvent and diminish the central importance of democratic and rule of law reforms in the countries wishing to join the EU" the paper quotes the text as saying.

The European Parliament had already called for an investigation into the Hungarian Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy back in January, claiming that he is not doing enough to address rule of law issues in countries that want to join the EU. Many suspect that he is doing so to serve the interests of the Hungarian government, when he ought to be acting independently of it. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had already dismissed the proposal once, prompting Dutch Social Democrat MEP Thijs Reuten, one of the authors of the resolution, to tell the paper that he was disappointed.

"We had good reason to submit this proposal almost a year ago, but Commissioner Várhelyi is acting as if nothing had happened," Reuten told Népszava. He also criticises the Hungarian commissioner for having gone to Belgrade in February this year with the promise of a €600 million EU grant, right after President Aleksandar Vučić's refusal to sign an agreement in Brussels on normalising relations with Kosovo.

Várhelyi is regarded as an outstanding expert with a difficult nature. He has been working with the EU for practically his entire career, and came under fire in the EP earlier this year when, while in the chamber of the European Parliament, through his switched-on microphone, he could clearly be heard saying:

“How many more idiots are there?”

This was not the first conflict Várhelyi has had with MEPs, many of whom have been calling for his resignation. We covered his career and the conflict in detail in this article.