Poland and Hungary Face Crunch EU Court Ruling
EU’s top court will issue rule-of-law judgment that could see funds curtailed
Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.
Poland and Hungary face a landmark ruling from the EU’s top court today that could lead to both countries losing access to billions of euros in budget aid. The two eastern renegades last March challenged the bloc’s tough new powers linking payments to their adherence to democratic standards. An adviser to the court already backed the legality of the tool. Sensing defeat, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said over the weekend that the EU was waging a “rule-of-law jihad.” The EU’s executive could trigger the so-called conditionality mechanism within weeks of the ruling, a potentially explosive move coming just ahead of Hungary’s April 3 national election.