Hungary is set to become the first EU country to be monitored by the Council of Europe, following recent changes to the country’s constitution.
The monitoring committee of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly announced last week (25 April) that it was recommending a formal procedure to monitor Hungary’s respecting of its obligations to the Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe (CoE) is Europe’s oldest organization, specialising in human rights, and its Parliamentary Assembly is the oldest international parliamentary assembly, currently representing the parliaments of 47 countries.
When countries join the Council of Europe, the organisation automatically opens a monitoring procedure, which is lifted over time. Of all EU countries, only Bulgaria has been covered by a monitoring procedure, since it joined the CoE in 1992. But the CoE has never opened a monitoring procedure against an EU member.
“If the motion of the monitoring committee is approved by the Parliamentary Assembly, this would be the first time that a monitoring procedure would be opened with regard to an EU member state”, Andrew Cutting, media officer of the CoE told EurActiv.
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