The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) voted Tuesday against lifting the immunity of left-wing Italian MEP Ilaria Salis, arguing that she would not get a fair trial in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Salis, 41, was arrested in February 2023 in Budapest, charged with attempted assault on a far-right activist and accused of belonging to an extreme left-wing group. She spent more than a year in jail in Hungary before being elected to the Parliament with Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance.
The detention of Salis — who sits with The Left group in Parliament — sparked outrage after images of her in shackles went viral. Her father, Roberto Salis, denounced the conditions in which she was held as “inhumane,” while critics accused the Hungarian government of weaponizing the judiciary to intimidate anti-fascists.
Salis denies the charges and has called them politically motivated.
13 MEPs voted against the report by European People’s Party MEP Adrián Vázquez Lázara that recommended lifting Salis’ immunity, while 12 voted in favor, two sources with direct knowledge of the ballot told POLITICO.
“This is a crucial step in defending the rule of law and protecting our democracies. By rejecting Orbán’s blackmail attempts, the JURI Committee of the European Parliament has preserved the honour of European institutions,” The Left said in a statement, announcing that Salis will hold a press conference in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
Ahead of the JURI vote, Vázquez, the European People’s Party point person on Salis’ case, warned that deciding not to lift her immunity would be “irresponsible” as it would expose the Parliament to legal risk. He said that because the alleged crimes date back to February 2023, before Salis became an MEP, protecting her immunity would breach the Parliament’s legal procedure.
“The message would be that the Parliament would have tried to benefit one of its members just for political reasons, avoiding the rules of the House,” he told POLITICO on Monday.
Vázquez said that Hungary could take the Parliament to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and win. “It’s Orbán who is going to win against the Parliament. It’s so irresponsible,” he added.
Despite Vázquez’s warnings, the faction seeking to shield Salis from Hungary’s courts — citing Orbán’s rule-of-law backsliding — prevailed, aided by some EPP MEPs who broke ranks. Had the entire group backed lifting her immunity, Salis would have lost her protection.
“Legally speaking you can argue that in countries where the rule of law situation is critical, as it is in Hungary, there is a higher risk that criminal proceedings are not taking place in a fair manner,” German Social Democrat MEP René Repasi said.
“That’s why the EU Court of Justice has accepted that European Arrest Warrants from Hungary can be rejected, which the German Constitutional Court actually did in a case similar to the one of Ilaria Salis,” he added.
In June 2024, Salis was released from custody in Budapest after winning a seat in the Parliament with Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance, which granted her parliamentary immunity. But in October last year, Hungarian prosecutors asked the Parliament to lift that immunity.Salis said the request had “rather peculiar timing.”
“The request reached the Parliament exactly the day after Orbán’s visit, when I, along with other colleagues, had spoken out against the Hungarian government,” she told POLITICO.According to Salis, Hungary’s request to lift her immunity was politically motivated and she said she feared “political revenge” from Orbán.
In a new interview published Monday, Salis told Corriere della Sera she would like to stand trial in Italy rather than Hungary.
This article has been updated.
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