(Bloomberg) -- Hungary faces another fight at the European Union’s top court, this time over controversial sovereignty-protection legislation the EU’s executive sees as a violation of citizens’ fundamental rights.
The European Commission warned Thursday that the law threatens a slate of EU values including the rights to privacy, family life and freedom of expression, and said it was forwarding the case to the EU’s Court of Justice.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who’s ruled by decree since the Covid crisis, is stepping up efforts at political control as a potent challenger emerged this year. Peter Magyar’s Tisza party is running neck-and-neck with Orban’s Fidesz in the latest polls ahead of the 2026 general elections.
The five-term leader set up a Sovereignty Protection Agency this year amid concern at home that it would be used to pursue the nationalist regime’s political opponents or civil society activists. The authority has since probed corruption watchdog Transparency International as well as investigative journalists and environmental groups.
The pro-government leader of the agency told Bloomberg in February that while he’d probe potential political interference regardless of its origin, Russia and China wouldn’t be a priority. Orban has deepened ties with Moscow and Beijing even as Western allies have reduced them in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The focus to shield Hungary from potential foreign political influence stands in stark contrast with Orban’s own efforts abroad to support fellow nationalists. This week, Spain’s far-right Vox party became the latest to confirm that it had received a loan from a bank close to the Hungarian leader to finance its election campaigns last year.
Thursday’s EU lawsuit is the latest in a raft of disputes at the bloc’s courts over alleged violations of the EU’s rule of law.
Among recent cases, the nation was ordered to pay €200 million ($216 million) and daily €1 million fines for failing to comply with a judgment on the protection of asylum seekers, in a move Orban called “outrageous.”
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