Croatia shares some concerns about Hungary mentioned in a report on that country adopted in the European Parliament on Wednesday, but this issue should have been resolved through the European Commission, which is why MEPs from the ranks of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) had voted against it, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, MEPs had approved in Strasbourg a report compiled by Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini that criticised the erosion of the rule of law and democratic standards in the country under its current Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The report authored by Sargentini said that there is a “clear risk” of a serious breach of the values of the European Union in Hungary, and called for the Article 7 procedure, which ultimately suspends a member country’s voting rights, to be launched.

The report was approved with 448 votes in favour, 197 against and 48 abstentions. Croatia has 11 MEPs, ten of whom voted on Wednesday, with five supporting the report and five against it. Among the five who were against it were three MEPs from Plenkovic’s ruling centre-right HDZ.

“This is not the right way,” Plenkovic said in Pula. “If there is a serious problem, and to some extent we do understand and share some of the concerns mentioned in the report, the right way would be to go through the European Commission, and not the European Parliament, which is why we voted the way we did,” Plenkovic said.

He added that a similar case of suspected violations to the rule of law involving Poland was being handled through the European Commission.

The other reason why the HDZ objected, Plenkovic said, were “outstanding issues we have with Hungary, which we would like to resolve,” and added that “strategically, we see this decision in a much wider context.”

The vote comes nine months after the European Commission used its power to launch the same process against Poland. The rarely invoked process is designed to prevent member states from breaching the European Union’s core values.

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