Prime Minister Orbán sat down with French weekly Le Point for an exclusive interview on Hungary’s stance regarding Ukraine, the upcoming EP elections, global politics, and Brussels’ duty to protect...
“Blockage of money always comes when the country does not fulfil something,” Vera Jourová said.
Gergely Gulyás said the EC and EP were exerting pressure on Hungary’s government in respect of two issues “on which Hungarian voters have clearly expressed their opinion”.
Balázs Hidvéghi said that the EP wanted to suspend the country’s voting rights because they didn’t agree on important political matters.
The EC president said the EU will continue to withhold some 20 billion euros of cohesion funds until other concerns are addressed.
The funds will kick-start the implementation of key investments and reforms outlined in each chapter of the REPowerEU scheme.
This latest transfer and the 779.5 million euros in recovery funding received last week bring the total funding received by Hungary in recent days to 470 billion forints.
Tibor Navracsics, Regional Development Minister, said Hungary could now start implementing several of its goals.
The European Commission said Hungary may start claiming reimbursements of up to around 10.2 billion euros in cohesion funding as it has adopted reforms related to judicial independence.
The 2021-2027 EU funding period is also underway, he noted, and talks on cohesion funds and the support and loan parts of recovery funds started last year.
Minister Varga said Hungary would get 3.9 billion euros of RRF loans and 0.7 billion euros of REPowerEU grants on top of a 5.8 billion euro grant.
Hungary was expected to be ranked as one of the member states best at utilising EU funds in the 2014-2020 financial cycle.
The EC has released 900 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Facility to finance projects approved in the RePowerEU chapter.