“has ordered closing eyes on Serbia's” actions, charges against Enlargement Commissioner Varhely

Várhely is accused of closing his eyes before the dramatic decline of democratic standards in Serbia, a country that has been classified by Freedom House as “partially free from previous “lira”. Various officials of the Enlargement Directorate, quoted unnamed by the report, complain that the commissioner has urged them not to look carefully at the situation in order to promote membership progress, particularly Serbia.

And although the Hungarian diplomat aims to give equal assessments to all potential members, he is pushing a country's candidacy above all: Serbia-in spite of the fact that Belgrade has failed to make progress on key issues and has even made aggression in some, according to observers of democracy.

ROMEO Franz, a Europarliamentary for Turkey's Greenman, told Politico.eu that Várhely's position has also been controversial in the event of blocking the decision to open membership talks with northern Macedonia and Albania by Bulgarian veto, when he proposed dividing the process to allow the opening for Albania but not for Northern Macedonia. Franz sees a link between government support Orban in Hungary for former Prime Minister convicted of corruption Nikola Gruevski.

An official of the Directorate of Enlargement also commented that he notes an apparent agreement between the Hungarian government's stance on Turkey and Várhely's stance. He is also accused of erasing from the draft report on Turkey, some references to inciting hate speech by Turkey's ruling politicians to the LGBTQ+ community, or violating journalists.