Olivér Várhelyi, Hungary’s proposed commissioner for the Health and Animal Welfare portfolio, was the first designate not to receive the endorsement of MEPs on the relevant committees during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, November 6th. Lawmakers gave him until next Monday to answer follow-up questions in written form on which to base their final decision, although Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen wants the candidate greenlit as soon as possible.
The MEPs who were most skeptical of Várhelyi’s suitability for the job mainly had issues with his country’s alleged track record in the area of women’s reproductive rights—despite Hungarian abortion laws being fairly liberal, akin to Danish and Norwegian ones.
It is clear Várhelyi’s rejection had nothing to do with any objective reasons. It was simply a way to punish PM Viktor Orbán’s national conservative government for its political stances, as well as the Commissioner-designate personally who had previously got under the leftists’ skin for years while working as the European Union’s enlargement chief.
Even before the event, members of the liberal Renew group said they would never approve Várhelyi unless vaccines and reproductive rights are taken out of his portfolio, regardless of the findings of the hearing.
The liberals were not the only ones with knives out for Várhelyi, as the abortion witch hunt was set up by a question from French socialist MEP Christophe Clergeau, asking the commissioner-designate whether he truly supports effective and legal access to the procedure.
Várhelyi responded by stating the fact that abortion wasn’t even an EU competence and that each member state had the right to “different solutions” that fit their societies best. Besides, on-demand abortion is not necessarily a medical question, he said, but “a question that is more of a constitution and human rights.”
For context, Hungary has legal on-demand abortion up to 12 weeks, the same threshold as in the majority of EU countries. In certain circumstances in can be extended to 18 or 20 weeks if the mother’s health is at risk or if the pregnancy is the result of rape; 24 weeks if the fetus has at least a 50% chance of genetic malformation; or up to birth if the fetus is lethally affected by a condition and will likely not survive for long after birth.
In other words, accusing the Hungarian candidate of magically rolling back abortion rights across the EU—which he wouldn’t even have the power to touch in the first place—without any indication and just because he’s conservative was completely eccentric, even by the standards of the Brussels left.
Nonetheless, that’s exactly what happened as the commissioner-designate’s first remark was used to stir up emotions in the room.
Portuguese far-left MEP Catarina Martins accused Várhelyi of “standing on the other side” rather than being an ally to women. He responded by pointing out he lives happily with four—his wife and three daughters—earning a round of applause from conservatives who had been visibly annoyed by the left’s attempts to derail the hearing.
Then came the Danish liberal Stine Bosse, who asked whether he favors providing support for women who need to travel to other member states for abortion from EU taxpayer’s funds, a proposal that has prompted furious debates earlier this year. Still, the highest (or lowest) point of her remark was when he asked whether Várhelyi can guarantee that her granddaughters “will enjoy the same rights and freedom” as she had until now.
Managing to keep a cool head, the commissioner-designate replied by saying he had always been “very sensitive” to women’s rights. “I think there should be no difference made when life-choices are made, be it a man or be it a woman. Everybody must have their own choice,” he said. “I’m also responsible for the next generation of my own, and I want them not only to have the same rights, but hopefully, even more.”
At the same time, Várhelyi stressed again that the question had barely anything to do with his portfolio, or indeed anybody’s in the EU executive, to also answer the ‘abortion tourism’ question. He explained:
Abortion is not an EU competence. If you want to make it an EU competence, you have to amend the treaties and amend the competences, and then it is going to be a topic to discuss.
Of course, reason is not enough to satisfy those who made up their minds before Várhelyi even opened his mouth.
The Greens’ Tilly Metz, for instance, wrote on social media that having a wife does not automatically make anyone an ally to women, while Clergeau posted that Várhelyi’s “answers and his silence on abortion say a lot about his reactionary ideology about the respect of this fundamental right.”
It’s no surprise that the committee leaders decided not to immediately approve Várhelyi’s nomination. They gave him homework instead; that’s likely just a means of buying time to decide whether the risk of stalling the Commission formation process by requiring a new nomination from Budapest was worth taking in order to reject him entirely next week.
According to a Euractiv, however, the president-elect of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen is not happy with the outcome and is pressuring the socialists and liberals behind the scenes to finish the approval process as soon as they can.
After all, in case Várhelyi gets rejected, Budapest can retaliate by taking its time to nominate a replacement, delaying the start of the next administration by weeks or months—an embarrassment that von der Leyen wants to avoid at all costs.
