By a vote of 327-293, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the European Commission "to initiate immediately an in-depth monitoring process concerning the situation of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights in Hungary," as part of the "rule of law framework." The framework, designed to tackle threats to the rule of law in EU, has never been used before. The EP resolution criticizes the EC’s recent assessment of Hungary as focusing "mainly on marginal, technical aspects of the legislation, while ignoring the trends, patterns and combined effect of measures."