European Parliament votes for lawsuit against EU Commission: the Rule of law mechanism against Hungary must be triggered this summer!

With a clear majority (506 in favor, 150 against, 28 abstentions) the European Parliament voted today (Thursday) in favor of launching an action for failure to act against the EU Commission. The triggering of the procedure follows a March resolution in which the Parliament had given the Commission an ultimatum until June 1st to use the mechanism. 

Despite the threat of a lawsuit, Commission representatives had recently confirmed that they did not intend to trigger the mechanism before the fall of this year or even later. They want to await the outcome of a pending case before the European Court of Justice and draft internal guidelines for the application of the mechanism.