Hungary’s funding from the multiannual budget and the recovery package will run to 40.7 billion euros, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a letter briefing parliament on the results of the EU summit held in late July.
The country will further be entitled to a 10 billion euro loan, with the two sums adding up to 2.8% of GDP, he said. Moreover, Hungary will receive cohesion funds corresponding to 1.8% of its GDP over the next seven years, Orbán said. At the summit held from July 17 to 21, “Poland and Hungary fought side by side” and managed to thwart that procedures conducted “in the name of, but actually undermining, the rule of law” endanger Hungary’s financial interests and its cohesion funding. Important steps have been taken so that those resources should not be tied to political and ideological conditions, he said. Hungary has failed, however, to achieve progress in ensuring that EU funding of “parties and political organisations disguised as NGOs” is scrapped, the letter said. The prime minister pledged to keep “on the agenda” the issue of EU funding for “political parties and pseudo-civil organisations actually engaged in political activity”. “The EU budget and recovery package offer a serious economic opportunity to Hungary. However, a joint loan as part of the EU’s coronavirus response goes against Hungary’s decade-long deficit-cutting policy, and may result in a communal debt hitherto unheard of in the EU’s history. […] I propose that during the ratification debate of the agreement, the Hungarian parliament review the results and decide whether the achievements in fulfilling its mandate are sufficient for it to support the agreement,” Orbán said.
MTI
