Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the Hungarian government is complying with the European Commission's requests, but it has to assume that "there will always be more and more requests coming". The prime minister accused his government’s political opponents of weaponizing the EU institutions.
“They’re punishing us and clearly blackmailing us with EU funds,” the prime minister said in the interview published by the German-language Budapester Zeitung. “There is no legal basis for any of this; it’s simply blackmail.” The Hungarian government wants to cooperate rather than argue, PM Orbán said, adding that the government had no problem with implementing the 17 remedial measures it has agreed to. “We will fulfil them all, but I bet that right after this there will be an 18th [request], and a 19th and so on,” PM Orbán said, adding that “I assume that after this there will always be more and more requests coming.” Poland, too, had complied with every request but then “more and more demands were made”, PM Orbán said. “It is obviously about forcing a change of government in Poland,” he said, adding that “this could be the ultimate goal in the case of Hungary, too.”