Brutal: Hungary may lose up to 70 percent of EU funding
Brussels could withdraw a brutal amount of money: Hungary may lose up to 70 percent of its funding. The forint started to weaken quickly on the news.
It has previously been suggested that the European Commission might suspend some of Hungary’s EU funds. According to initial information, 25-27 percent of aid payments would be frozen, szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu writes. But now, Reuters reports that the EU is not satisfied with the Orbán government’s promises on corruption and the rule of law.
According to the news portal, the European Commission may propose on Sunday to suspend 70 percent of the EUR 22.5 billion in aid earmarked for Hungary in the ongoing rule of law case against the country. This means that more than EUR 15.7 billion (nearly HUF 6,400 billion) could be lost from the 2021-2027 funding due to corruption and other rule of law failures. On the news, the forint also started to fall: the euro cost HUF 405.35 at 6 PM on Thursday, down from HUF 399.40 early in the morning.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Ursula von der Leyen said, without mentioning Hungary, that funding for democracy-damaging members would be frozen, and singled out corruption. The debate on the report on the state of the rule of law in Hungary started in the European Parliament on Wednesday afternoon. Among other things, it finds that Hungary is steadily moving away from its core EU values and can be labelled an “electoral autocracy” by 2022.
Source: Reuters, szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu