The European Commission recommends this Wednesday, November 30 not to pay Hungary the European funds to which it is entitled. Thirteen billion Euros of European funds for Hungary are now at risk.
The European Commission requests the suspension of payments to Hungary. This is the part reserved for Hungary on the regular budget of the European Union, explains our correspondent in Brussels, Pierre Benazet. On the other side is the post-Covid European recovery plan.
The Commission approves of the Hungarian plan, but considers that the problems encountered in Hungary in respecting the rule of law and European values prevent the disbursement of European funds to Budapest there too. This is the first time that the Commission has used this conditionality mechanism and it considers that there are both systematic irregularities in the awarding of public contracts and shortcomings in legal proceedings and the fight against corruption.
The Commission had for the moment given Hungary the benefit of the doubt, not wanting to trigger this unprecedented mechanism without giving it the possibility of initiating reforms, but the reforms proposed by the Hungarian government are insufficient or badly applied. The Commission therefore now recommends that governments suspend payments pending effective reforms in Hungary, and asks the Commission to implement 27 reforms.
Hungary ready to convince the Commission
The Hungarian government has declared itself ready to ” convince the European Commission of its desire to fight corruption, in order to obtain the more than 13 billion euros currently frozen by Brussels. ” We will put in place the additional measures required and in 2023, we have no doubt that we will be able to convince the Commission (…) that it is not necessary to suspend the funds Hungarian negotiator Tibor Navracsics told reporters in Budapest. For Gergely Gulyas, Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, it is a question of dispelling the ” misunderstandings “which remain” on a few points “.
The Hungarian government is not surprised and wants to be optimistic after the freezing of EU funds
Several NGOs, including Transparency International, for their part hailed “ intransigence of the European executive who remained firm against nationalist leader Viktor Orban, accused of embezzling EU money to enrich his relatives.
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