Unholy war as struggles with EU continue

For one, there is the case of dismissing the Data Protection Ombudsman of Hungary in December 2011 before his mandate had ended, with the case ending up before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. Late last month judgement was passed: Hungary had breached the contract.
The court reasoned that the period of the mandate is part of the trust and independence under which the agent has to perform their work, and shortening the mandate was illegal. The Ministry of Public Administration and Justice says it is considering the verdict.
Hungary’s Church Law is another problem. The European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg found recently that the law only recognises a few of the country’s religious communities as churches, and violates the Convention on Human Rights and freedom of religion and assembly.
Apart from the effect on Hungary’s image, the really painful part could be the financial consequences. The government must negotiate damages with small churches, and if this fails, Strasbourg will determine the compensation to be paid. Interestingly, when the Hungarian Constitutional Court criticised the Church Law, the government nullified the court’s legal basis by including the relevant passages in the Constitution.
However, perhaps nothing will hit the government so painfully as the recent decision of the European Court of Justice that Hungary’s tax relief on the first 50 litres of home-brewed pálinka is contrary to EU regulations.
The liberalisation of home distilling was one of the first acts of the Fidesz government, with Orbán announcing the “Pálinka Freedom Movement” in the early days of his election in 2010. Soon after, doubt surfaced as to whether the law could stand or not.
The Ministry of National Economy opened talks with the EU to convince it of the importance of Hungary’s distilling tradition. It seems that this had only moderate success. The government may grant a 50% tax rebate until 2015 but that is all.
It seems that the end has come for one of Orbán’s favourite laws and the “Pálinka Freedom Movement”, although government spokesmen still say they want to argue about it.