HR
NL
FR
JA
RO
RU
ES
TR
The clock is ticking: Hungary risks losing EUR 1 billion in EU aid by year’s end!
As 2025 draws to a close, Hungary stands to lose over EUR 1 billion (approximately HUF 400 billion) in EU cohesion funds permanently, due to missed deadlines tied to ongoing corruption risks. This marks the second such forfeiture in as many years, following a similar EUR 1.04 billion loss at the end of 2024. The European Commission has confirmed these figures, attributing the cuts to the “conditionality mechanism” activated in late 2022, which all EU member states except Hungary and Poland endorsed.
Hungary to lose a huge amount of EU aid money
The mechanism suspends 55% of payments across three operational programmes from the EUR 6.3 billion cohesion budget earmarked for Hungary’s poorer regions during the 2021-2027 period, Telex reports. Under the EU’s strict “N+2” rule, funds committed for spending in a given year must be claimed by the end of the second year thereafter, or they revert to the central EU budget. Commitments slated for 2023 expenditure could no longer be requested after 31 December 2025, sealing their fate despite any future reforms, Népszava writes.
EU officials insist the suspensions stem from unresolved issues in anti-corruption laws, transparency, and rule-of-law standards. To unlock the funds, Hungary must enact specific legislative changes, including better oversight of public interest trusts (known as “KEKVA”) and judicial reforms. Progress has stalled: talks “ground to a halt” as noted by former minister Tibor Navracsics in early 2024, and the government’s latest assessment in late 2024 admitted shortfalls on key conditions out of 17 demanded.
Government figures push back forcefully. EU Affairs Minister János Bóka argued in January that Hungary met all conditions, framing the losses as “political” rather than substantive. Fidesz-KDNP communications chief Tamás Menczer echoed this, likening the situation to misplacing a phone rather than a genuine forfeiture driven by policy failures. Critics, however, point to tangible non-compliance, such as the KEKVAs’ mismanagement exposed in State Audit Office reports, evident in the second state bailout for Kecskemét’s Neumann János University’s campus after significant losses.
Looming larger losses in 2026
The stakes escalate dramatically next year. Hungary risks forfeiting EUR 10.4 billion from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), including a EUR 920 million advance already received, which must be repaid if “super-milestones” on rule-of-law reforms aren’t hit by August 2026. These overlap with cohesion fund preconditions, amplifying the already huge pressure.
The Orbán government has floated reallocating RRF funds to later years and hinted at leveraging vetoes in the next EU budget cycle (post-2027) for “reparations”. Yet Prime Minister Orbán himself projected at least two years of negotiations in July, potentially triggering further “N+2” forfeitures in 2025-2026. A related court case at the EU’s General Court questions the legality of past fund releases due to similar blackmail allegations.
With the clock ticking (mere days remain until the latest deadline, as highlighted in an ATV report), these losses could total nearly a third of frozen development aid. Even swift action post-elections might not salvage them.
Hungary under Mr. Orbán repeatedly uses the EU’s unanimity rules as leverage. Our Politicians threaten or apply a veto on key decisions, then they routinely trade consent for concessions. Release or re‑labeling of frozen funds, etc… Formally, this is “negotiation within the rules,” however in practice (and perception of all the other EU Member States) liken it to hostage‑taking, with Hungary routinely (ten times documented, to date) blocking an urgent collective decision until its own, generally unrelated, demands are addressed.
Also – our Politicians love to bang on about the importance of EU expansion. But since Hungary has turned the veto into a regular negotiation tactic, it is now central in debates about EU reform and additional conditions for enlargement (two speed EU, etc.). The other EU Members are not champing at the bit to admit anyone new until this issue of monetizing or politicizing veto power is resolved.
The EU has been structuring proposals so that they only require a “qualified majority” thus negating Orban’s veto. If Fidesz stays in office after April I think we can expect that if anything the EU will take an even harder line on Hungary. It will not be pretty.
You can be 100% certain that if Hungary’s government was yet another faceless Brussels puppet, even with everything else in this story being exactly the same, this money (some of which is Hungary’s contribution to the E.U.’s budget anyway!) would’ve been paid out to us a long time ago.
The E.U. sickens me to the core.