Parliament’s ninth hearing has added Hungary’s ICC withdrawal and 52 unimplemented European Court of Human Rights judgments to the record. The political arithmetic of unanimity continues to prevent the Council from acting on what the file plainly shows
The European Parliament adopted a resolution following the ninth Article 7(1) TEU hearing on Hungary at the November 2025 plenary, which has just been published. The Article 7 procedure was triggered against Hungary by Parliament in September 2018 on the basis of a serious risk of breach of EU values under Article 2 TEU. Seven years later, the Council has held nine hearings but has made no formal determination under Article 7(1) that a serious risk exists, a determination that would require a four-fifths majority of member states. The political arithmetic of Article 7 has not changed, as Hungary and Poland, before Poland’s government change in late 2023, acted as mutual protection partners, and sufficient member states have been unwilling to vote for a formal determination.
The resolution catalogues what the ninth hearing added to the file. Hungary’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court in November 2025, announced immediately after Prime Minister Viktor Orbán hosted ICC-indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is treated as a separate rule-of-law concern rather than simply a foreign policy matter, because ICC withdrawal was presented without parliamentary debate or constitutional process. Parliament also notes that as of November 2025 Hungary had 52 unimplemented judgments pending before the European Court of Human Rights, a figure significantly above the EU average.
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What the Record Now Contains
The core concerns that triggered the 2018 procedure remain unresolved and have, in Parliament’s assessment, deepened. The independence of the Hungarian judiciary is the central item, as the Kuria, the Supreme Court, and the Constitutional Court have all been subject to personnel interventions that Parliament regards as incompatible with judicial independence under Article 19 TEU and the rule-of-law acquis. A series of European Court of Justice rulings have found specific Hungarian measures incompatible with EU law, including on asylum procedures, academic freedom, and NGO regulation.
The media environment has deteriorated substantially since 2018. Parliament’s resolution notes that the largest commercial television broadcaster, the main national radio stations, and the majority of regional newspapers are now owned by entities associated with the governing party, and that independent media outlets operate under regulatory and advertising market conditions the resolution characterises as designed to marginalise them. Hungary has ranked last among EU member states in the Reporters Without Borders press freedom index for several consecutive years.
ICC and ECHR
Hungary’s ICC withdrawal is treated in the resolution as evidence of a broader pattern rather than an isolated foreign policy decision. The withdrawal was announced one day after Orbán’s meeting with Putin in Budapest, and was presented to the Hungarian parliament as a government decree without prior legislative consultation. Parliament’s resolution characterises the manner of withdrawal, as much as the withdrawal itself, as inconsistent with the constitutional norms of an EU member state.
The 52 unimplemented ECHR judgments represent a more systemic concern. The Court of Human Rights is not an EU institution, but its judgments are relevant to the EU rule-of-law framework because ECHR compliance is a condition of EU membership under Article 6(3) TEU and the Copenhagen criteria. Systematic non-implementation of Strasbourg judgments is treated by Parliament as a further indicator of the pattern of rule-of-law deterioration it has been tracking since 2018.
The Procedure’s State
The Article 7 procedure is formally active but institutionally stalled. The Council Presidency is required to hold hearings at regular intervals; the ninth hearing took place in November 2025. Parliament’s resolution calls on the Council to “make progress” and on the Commission to apply the conditionality regulation more aggressively, including by triggering new payment suspensions under the EU’s Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation. A substantial portion of Hungary’s cohesion fund allocations remain suspended pending reforms the Commission has assessed as incomplete.
The broader question the resolution implicitly poses is whether Article 7 as a mechanism is capable of producing outcomes when the political conditions for its activation are absent. Parliament has consistently called for Treaty reform to lower the Article 7(1) threshold from four-fifths to a simple majority, and for stronger automaticity in the conditionality regulation. Neither reform is in prospect in the short term. The Article 7 procedure remains the EU’s formal instrument of last resort on rule-of-law matters; its inability to produce a determination against Hungary after seven years of documented concerns is, in Parliament’s view, itself a structural problem for the EU’s constitutional order.
