BUDAPEST; Hungary will launch a case to annul a rule-of-law declaration, approved at this week's European Union (EU) summit, in the bloc's top court, Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga told state radio on Friday.

The declaration, launched at the European Union summit on Thursday, states that the rule-of-law link to funds will be applied objectively, and only to safeguard the proper use of European Union money, rather than to punish countries under separate European Union rule-of-law probes. With a last-minute compromise hammered out with Poland and Hungary, EU leaders unblocked on Thursday a 1.8 trillion euro financial package to help recover from a novel covid19-induced recession.

To delay the application of the new regulation on the rule of law, Poland and Hungary can ask the EU's top court to check if it is in line with EU treaties, which could take two years. "No one should have any doubts the Hungarian government will attack this (in EU's court) as we believe there are rule of law problems with the text of the declaration itself, and I am sure the EU court will remedy these," Varga told state radio.

Poland and Hungary had blocked the EU budget and recovery fund because access to the money is, for the first time, to be linked to respecting the rule of law. The two countries are under EU investigations for undermining the independence of courts and media and were at risk of losing billions of euro from the EU.

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