Hungary protests EC’s shortened infringement procedure deadlines

Hungary justice ministry has slammed the European Commission’s imposition of what it believes are unjustifiably short deadlines for Hungary to respond to its queries in connection with high-profile infringement procedure cases.

The government will apply the regular two-month deadline rather than the one-month timescale specified by the EC in sending its reply to the commission’s reasoned opinion concerning the law affecting NGOs financed from abroad, the justice ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The ministry rejected what it believed was the EC’s “unjustified and adverse” imposition of deadlines for Hungary.

It noted that the commission stepped up its infringement procedure against Hungary over the NGO transparency law on October 4 by sending its reasoned opinion. The commission gave Hungary one month to amend the law and bring it into line with European regulations as opposed to the regular two-month deadline. This means that Hungary has until November 5 to send its reply, the ministry said.

This marks the fifth time in seven months that the EC has set a deadline of one month or even less for Hungary to respond to its official queries, the ministry added.

The ministry said Hungary has had to work with “unnecessarily short deadlines” in the cases of three complicated infringement procedures: the migrant quota issue, the NGO transparency law and the amendment to the higher education law.