
Article 7 allows the Council of the EU to revoke membership rights of membership countries, without reducing their membership obligations.
There is currently talk to invoke this against Hungary, which is using the unanimity requirement of the Council to extract benefits from the EU.
Article 7 requires:
80% of membership states (the 'target country' doesn't get a vote), i.e. 21/26
Simple majority in the European Parliament
Update 2025-07-05 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator has clarified that their intent for a YES resolution was the triggering of Article 7(3), which results in the suspension of voting rights.
The original description ambiguously mixed the description of Article 7(3) with the voting thresholds for Article 7(1).
Due to this ambiguity, the creator is resolving the market to N/A.
@traders I just learned that apparently there is a second and third stage, and I'm N/Aging this question because I did a poor job describing it.
The procedure has multiple stages with increasingly difficult voting thresholds:
Article 7(1) - "Clear Risk": Requires 4/5 majority in Council after European Parliament consent ✅ This stage was triggered in 2018 by the Parliament but the 4/5th hasn't been reached.
Article 7(2) - "Serious Breach": Requires unanimity in European Council (excluding Hungary) to determine "serious and persistent breach" ❌ This is the main bottleneck
Article 7(3) - Sanctions: Only after unanimity in stage 2, then qualified majority in Council can suspend voting rights
In my description and title, it's unclear whether it refers to Article 7(1) or Article 7(3). I meant Article 7 (3), the removal of voting rights, but described only 7(1). Therefore, N/A