“The ball is very much in Hungary’s court,” according to European Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn, who says that Hungary has still not complied with a series of conditions that would enable it to receive frozen EU funds. The commissioner gave an account of the situation to the members of the European Parliament’s budget and budgetary control committees on Tuesday, November 7th in Brussels.
The European Commission decided last December to withhold €22 billion of EU cohesion funds for Hungary until its government meets conditions related to judiciary independence, academic freedoms, LGBT rights, and the asylum system. The EU is also holding back Hungary’s €5.8 billion in grants from the EU’s post-COVID stimulus programme until the government addresses concerns over the independence of courts.
The measures taken so far by Hungary “are not enough,” and as a result “the budget remains at risk,” Johannes Hahn said, referring to the so-called “conditionality regulation,” a mechanism that allows the EU to take measures—for example suspension of payments—when breaches of the rule of law principles risk affecting EU financial interests.
Although the Hungarian parliament adopted a law in May to fulfil requirements by the European Commission to strengthen judicial independence in the country, Brussels assessed that Budapest had not done enough.
Something always comes up. There’s always something more. It is clear that those commissioners who constantly express new doubts about Hungary’s commitment always make new demands, they are simply biased against us for political reasons. And they are withholding our EU funds completely unfairly, without any legal basis or good reason,
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said at the time.
Hungary’s top negotiator, Minister for Regional Development Tibor Navracsics previously said he hoped talks with the European Union to unlock the funds for Hungary would conclude by the end of November. Media reports suggested that the EU would give the go-ahead in exchange for the Budapest government’s backing of more aid to Ukraine, including a start to membership talks for Kyiv. Johannes Hahn on Tuesday did indeed talk of “constructive meetings” with his Hungarian counterparts but dismissed the concerns of some MEPs that Hungary was using its leverage to “blackmail” the EU.
One of these MEPs, Moritz Körner of the German liberal party FDP, stated at the committee meeting that the EU must not “give into threats” from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and that the money to Hungary “should not be released until all the necessary requirements have been fulfilled.” The MEP even suggested giving funds directly to Hungarian NGOs, circumventing the Hungarian government.
His thoughts coincide with that of Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, a French Green MEP and the Parliament’s Hungary rapporteur, who told Politico that the EU should release funds for Hungarian universities and research, but in a way that the money is circumvented, possibly put under the European Commission’s direct management, so that it doesn’t “fall into the hands of a corrupt regime.” As we previously reported, the Commission announced last December that the European Union’s Erasmus grant funding program, which allows students to study abroad at partner institutions, would no longer be made available to 21 Hungarian universities. The government in Budapest sees the decision as a clear escalation of its political dispute with Brussels. Budapest has argued that the real reason for these attacks is political because of the government’s conservative stances on issues such as migration, the transgender debate, and the war in Ukraine.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights Nicolas Schmit said that while “we all regret” that “Hungarian people are the ones being punished,” it would be difficult to circumvent the government regarding the channelling of EU funds.
Hungarian MEP for the ruling governing party Fidesz, Andor Deli criticised the Commission for making additional demands to Hungary every time it is put under pressure by the left-liberal majority of the European Parliament. “I urge the Commission to not give in to blackmail. We need to avoid the politicisation of this procedure,” he said. Bogdan Rzońca, MEP for the conservative Polish PiS party complained that, while there is a leftist majority, the EU will be biased towards conservative governments. He referred to rule-of-law breaches, and undermining of the independent judicial system by the leftist Spanish government that have been ignored by EU institutions.
