The two member states had brought actions before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) seeking the annulment of the rule of law conditionality regulation which has been in force since January 2021.

Under the regulation, the European Council may, at the request of the European Commission, adopt measures in response to rule of law breaches such as the suspension of payments from the EU budget or the suspension of the approval of one or more programmes financed by that budget.

Hungary and Poland have challenged the regulation on the basis of, inter alia, the alleged absence or inadequacy of the legal basis chosen for the Regulation, the alleged incompatibility of the Regulation with Article 7 TEU and the alleged breach of the principle of legal certainty.

However, in an opinion published yesterday, Advocate-General Manuel Campos Sánchez-Bordona rejected all of their claims and proposed that the CJEU should dismiss the actions.

He emphasised that the regulation is not intended to protect the rule of law by means of a sanction mechanism similar to Article 7 TEU, but rather to establish a financial conditionality instrument to safeguard the sound management of the EU’s funds or its financial interests.