The European Parliament has begun preparing to withdraw the Article 7 procedure against Hungary, four months into Prime Minister Péter Magyar’s government and before the mission meant to assess his reforms has set foot in Budapest.
Lawmakers and officials told Euronews that the change of government had removed most of the objections behind the case, which the Parliament triggered against Viktor Orbán in 2018 over alleged breaches of European Union values.
The European People’s Party (EPP) is ready to push for withdrawal, a step Euronews reported would hand a political victory to Magyar’s Tisza party, which sits within the group. A senior EPP member said it was “reasonable that the procedure ends soon”.
Manfred Weber, who leads the group, called for the procedure to be brought to an end within days of Orbán’s defeat in April, before Magyar had taken office. He tied the case to the former prime minister personally and cited the incoming government’s commitment to European values.
A fact-finding mission is planned for late October, with meetings set with authorities and NGOs. MEPs taking part would then draft a report, which Dutch MEP Tineke Strik, who leads the file, expects in early 2027.
Strik said the assessment would work through a checklist of criteria, one of them the repeal of Hungary’s 2021 child protection law, which restricts minors’ access to content depicting homosexuality or gender transition.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on April 21, 2026 that the law breached EU law and the bloc’s founding values. Magyar’s government has neither repealed it nor said it intends to.
Withdrawal requires a two-thirds majority, or at least 480 of the Parliament’s 719 members. The European Conservatives and Reformists, Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations, close to 200 MEPs between them, are expected to back it as an intrusion into national politics.
With the EPP’s 184 lawmakers also likely to vote in favour, the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) and Renew Europe hold the balance. Italian MEP Sandro Gozi said the end of the procedure “should be based on real changes”, otherwise it would look like a political decision.
The Parliament in July declined to debate the constitutional overhaul carried out by Magyar’s majority, which cut short the sitting president’s term and imposed retrospective limits on office holders.
Article 7 has been triggered only twice. The Polish case was closed in 2024 after Donald Tusk’s coalition replaced the Law and Justice (PiS) government, and Hungary secured about €16.4 billion in frozen EU funds in May after Magyar agreed a reform package with the European Commission.
