Hungarian diplomats are getting ready for a fight in the European Parliament to stop their designated Commissioner from losing the health part of the EU Health and Animal Welfare portfolio handed him by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Viktor Orban’s government was not happy when their Commission pick, Oliver Varhelyi, who for the past five years has held the Neighbourhood and Enlargement portfolio, was given the combination of health and animal welfare. In Brussels the move was considered to be retaliation for Hungary’s delaying of EU support for Ukraine.
The Hungarians now fear that the Parliament may choose to push for Varhelyi to lose the lion’s share of his new portfolio i.e. health policy. However, animal rights and welfare campaigners are pressing for Varhelyi to he stripped of animal welfare rather than health on the grounds that the Hungarian has no track record or interest in animal protection.
This means that Varhelyi’s hearing in the Parliament — lawmakers will interrogate all Commission nominees — is likely to be difficult; there is speculation his appointment may not be approved.
“It would be a total humiliation for Budapest if we were to have our candidate rejected or ended up being given just the animal welfare brief in the new commission”, said a Hungarian expert close to Viktor Orban’s team and a keen Brussels watcher.
The outgoing Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Stella Kyriakides, did have animal welfare rules in her brief over the last five years. She had been expected to deliver an overhaul of the bloc’s animal welfare rules, though by the end of her mandate the EC had produced only bills on animal transport and the pet trade.
Von der Leyen’s mission letter to Varhelyi makes reference to modernising rules on animal welfare without going into specifics. The expectation is that the new Commission will introduce a ban on the use of cages in farming, a move which many farmers will oppose.
Hungary has faced ostracism in Brussels as a result of its scepticism regarding support for Ukraine against Russia and its insistence on continuing to import Russian oil and gas. It has also upset the majority within the EC and the Parliament over its opposition to what it sees as the EU institutions’ habit of acting outside of the treaties in assuming ever more powers at the expense of the member states. PM Viktor Orban has been accused of being an autocrat who disrespects the rule of law.
