Head of the Competition Authority: CJEU ‘humiliates’ Hungarians with Spar ruling
Csaba Balázs Rigó, the head of the Hungarian Competition Office (GVH), said in an interview with the daily Magyar Nemzet published on Tuesday that the recent ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in favour of supermarket chain Spar “humiliated” Hungarians and showed the court put profit ahead of affordable staples.
In its ruling, issued earlier in September, the CJEU said that price caps Hungary’s government earlier mandated for staples such as sugar, flour, cooking oil, pork and milk, to keep inflation down “undermined fair competition” and were contrary to EU law. The ruling was made after Spar Magyarorszag contested a fine for violating rules on inventory levels for the affected products.
Rigo told Magyar Nemzet that GVH‘s follow-up probe to determine whether Spar Magyarország had complied with voluntary commitments to expand its local supplier base was unrelated to the CJEU ruling.
He said:
From my point of view, there is only one way of looking at the matter, and that is this. The government, be it any government of any country, has a responsibility to protect the people of that country from unexpected economic situations that threaten to have serious consequences. To achieve this objective, the periodic use of the trench warmer was an appropriate instrument. In response, the CJEU has now stated that, as they have said, the supply chain is more important than the consumer, in other words, in an emergency, the interests of the multinationals take precedence over guaranteeing the subsistence needs of Hungarian society. I find this unacceptable. It is also strange why the Hungarian court sent the case to the EU and did not rule on it itself.
As we wrote before, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that price caps Hungary’s government earlier mandated for staples such as sugar, flour, cooking oil, pork, and milk to keep inflation down were contrary to EU law, read details HERE.
After this strong statement, the question arises whether the head of the Competition Authority can make an objective decision on the competition situation in Hungary on this or other issues?
On the other topic we wrote earlier, the CJEU imposed a substantial EUR 200 million fine on Hungary for violating EU legislations. There is a daily additional EUR 1 million fine for failure to comply with the judgement of the CJEU, details HERE.
If the decision was not contrary to national justice, irrational or involved an incorrect application of the law, it’s per se a correct decision. The court was asked to consider and weigh up competing interests while also considering the legal framework. The decision is not manifestly incorrect or anti-Hungarian to my mind, it just happens to result in the government falling on the losing side. Suck it up.
Hungary should just skill all these court hearings. The prejudiced court members can go to Hell. I do not believe this socialist court ever ruled in favor of Hungary. If Hungary did not exist, they would be totally unemployed.
Socialist? Is that when authorities impose price caps on enterprises, @mariavontheresa?
Just for completeness sake – this is what Hungary signed up for, when we joined the EU:
https://european-union.europa.eu/institutions-law-budget/institutions-and-bodies/search-all-eu-institutions-and-bodies/court-justice-european-union-cjeu_en
Telling “Them” to “”Go to Hell” means leaving the EU. Still waiting for that Top 3 Benefits of Brexit listing – so perhaps not such a great idea.
Riiiight, the court is socialist because it declared a socialist policy of the government as contrary to European law. By the way, it’s a serious slur on the experienced judges that sit in this court to make unfounded, serious and slanderous allegations against them by implying the decision they came to is not the fair and correct one in the circumstances on the basis of supposed political bias. This is not a kangaroo court comprised of mickey mouse judges. Hungary is losing the plot if you ask me, shortly it’ll be saying the earth is actually flat. The sheer amount of anger is becoming intolerable and suffocating.