Judgment_paragraph 111 · Hungary v European Parliament and Council of the European Union (C-156/21)

111Secondly, it follows from a combined reading of Article 4(1) and Article 6(1) of the contested regulation that the procedure laid down for the adoption of ‘appropriate measures’ for the protection of the Union budget can be initiated by the Commission only where it finds that there are reasonable grounds for considering not only that there have been breaches of the principles of the rule of law in a Member State, but, in particular, that those breaches affect or seriously risk affecting the sound financial management of the Union budget or the protection of the financial interests of the Union in a sufficiently direct way.