The Impact of EU Membership on Hungarian Lawmaking

This chapter examines the influence of two decades of EU membership on lawmaking in Hungary. Over this period, Hungarian lawmaking has been characterized by significant Europeanization, reflecting compliance with the legislative obligations arising from EU membership. However, individual cases of non-compliance indicate that the Hungarian lawmaker sometimes deliberately impedes the institutionalized lawmaking process—choosing to delay compliance or accepting infringement proceedings and potential litigation before the EU Court of Justice. In certain policy areas and for narrowly defined regulatory priorities, such non-compliance appears to be a deliberate choice. The infringement cases examined in this chapter reveal important insights into Hungarian legislative non-compliance. For example, after 2010 some cases show that although legal provisions infringing EU obligations were formally amended, the underlying market conditions and other circumstances that had shifted contrary to EU law were not addressed, and the original conditions were not restored. This allowed the Hungarian lawmaker to ultimately achieve its original objectives. Other cases provide evidence of intense politicization in the system governing legislative compliance with EU obligations. In these instances, the lawmaker’s intention to disregard EU obligations was evident both before and after the Court of Justice formally established the infringement. Moreover, Hungary has chosen to leave in force certain legal provisions that violate EU law while seeking domestic legal justification for maintaining the established breach of EU obligations.