“The Constitution is not a game!” crowds chanted during a March 9 demonstration in Budapest against constitutional changes adopted on March 11. Hopefully those chants were heard in Brussels. It’s high time the EU took resolute action to hold the Hungarian government accountable for their ongoing assault on human rights and the rule of law.

The changes to the constitution adopted on March 11 are only the latest in a series of legal changes introduced by the Hungarian government since it was elected with a ‘super’ majority in 2010. These changes have undermined important democratic checks on executive authority and attacked media freedom, judicial independence, and most recently the powers of the Constitutional Court.

The EU and the Council of Europe have raised concerns about these developments, but often in a piecemeal way, and have been muted when the Hungarian government has offered minor concessions while leaving the main problems unaddressed.

Take, for example, media regulation. International observers have expressed serious concerns about the lack of independence and risk of political interference with Hungary’s Media Council, which regulates broadcast and electronic media. The head of the five-person council (who is also the head of the main regulator, the Media Authority), was appointed for a 9-year renewable term by the Prime Minister, with the other four council members appointed by parliament.

The Hungarian government has prepared legislation to hand responsibility for appointing the head of the Media Council to the country’s president, and to limit tenure for the head and members to a single nine-year term. But the change will have no impact on the incumbent head and members of the Media Council, who will serve out their nine-year terms unless removed by a two-thirds majority in parliament. Nor does it affect appointments of the other members.

The new constitutional changes further concentrate the power of the government. They stem, in large part, from a series of Constitutional Court decisions in 2012 and early 2013 that deemed problematic laws unconstitutional. The proper thing for the government would have been to respect the Constitution, the court’s rulings, and the rule of law; implement the court decisions and make the necessary legislative changes. Instead, the government chose to amend the constitution and insert provisions limiting the power of the Constitutional Court to review changes to the constitution. These constitutional amendments were introduced without meaningful consultation or serious parliamentary debate.

The amended constitution now permits criminalization of homelessness by local authorities, restricts political ads to state broadcasters, excludes unmarried and same-sex couples from the legal definition of family, restricts religious freedom, and requires university students benefitting from state subsidies for studies to remain in Hungary after they graduate.

The EU is clearly worried about the direction Hungary is taking. José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, on March 8 told Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that the constitutional changes risk violating the rule of law. Barroso made a joint statement on March 11 with the Council of Europe secretary-general, Thorbjørn Jagland, reiterating those concerns. Although Germany and France have spoken out individually, EU member states have yet to engage as a collective.

The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE) has a rapporteur on Hungary who is in the process of preparing a report on the situation of fundamental rights in the country measured against EU laws and standards. As a result of the legal encroachments on media freedom, Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner on Digital Agenda, in February 2012 warned the government that she would push the European Commission to invoke Article 7 of the EU Treaty and suspend Hungary’s voting rights within the EU.

Despite warnings from the EU and an international outcry, including by the US State Department, against the latest constitutional changes, the Hungarian parliament adopted them. By doing so it sent a clear signal to the international community that it has no intention to ensure that any reforms to Hungary’s laws respect the country’s obligations under EU and international law.

The repeated refusal of the Hungarian government to abide by the rule of law and human rights norms has reached a point at which it constitutes a clear risk of a breach of the common values of the EU. The EU should move from warnings to resolute action to address, not just individual issues that can be cherry-picked by Budapest, but the rule of law deficit as a whole. That means giving serious consideration to invoking Article 7 of the EU Treaty, the strongest tool at its disposal, and suspendingHungary’s voting rights.

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Lydia Gall is the Balkans and Eastern Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch.