Hungary's National Judicial Council is exercising new competencies to counterbalance the powers of the President of the National Office for the Judiciary, rules on preliminary references to the Court of Justice of the EU have been clarified, and the transparency of case allocation at the Kuria, Hungary's supreme court, has improved further, the EC said. It added that the freedom of expression of judges remained "under pressure", while "smear campaigns" against judges continued in the media, and that the remuneration of judges and court staff had deteriorated further.
The EC said Hungary had adopted a new anti-corruption strategy for 2024-2025 and planned legislation on lobbying and revolving doors, but pointed to reports by the newly established Integrity Authority of "certain obstacles" in fulfilling its oversight tasks effectively. It noted that some high-level corruption cases had reached the indictment stage, but said the lack of a "robust track record" of investigations of corruption allegations concerning high-level officials remained "a serious concern".
The EC said Hungary had failed to address "threats" to media pluralism highlighted in the previous Rule of Law report, adding that no measures had been adopted to regulate the channeling of state advertising to media outlets.
The EC said "increasing state interventions and arbitrary decisions" remained a problem for the operation of businesses in the single market, while the "quality of law-making and the frequent changes in legislation" were a "significant cause for concern".
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