EU official says EU-Hungary agreement over EUR billions close

An EU official, speaking under the condition of anonymity, said that Hungary made a “significant step” towards securing the billions of euros the European Commission rejected to give due to rule-of-law and corruption concerns. That means Válasz Online, a Hungarian news website, will be right: finally, PM Orbán will be victorious over the European Commission by getting euro billions and stablising the Hungarian economy. Anyway, the European Union and Hungary have only weeks to reach a final agreement. After the signing process, the financial help can start to flow into the country from next spring.

And that money will mean a difference considering Hungary’s financial and economic problems. Since the country has to pay in euros for the import gas and oil, it creates a significant monetary deficit and weakens the currency exchange rate of the forint. However, if the EU money arrives, Budapest can use it to pay for the energy. Meanwhile, the government will pay the EU allowances for the Hungarian applicants in forint, a win-win situation for both the budget and the economy.

The Hungarian government has always been hopeful about the EU-Hungary agreement, but from Brussels, nobody spoke until yesterday. Reuters managed to talk with an EU official who confirmed that “the Hungarians have accepted the Commission’s conditions on the milestone for the independence of the judiciary. That is not the end of the negotiations but it is a significant step. I cannot confirm that we have finished all the negotiations on the recovery funds, but we are finalising them. The sticking points were very much around the independence of the judiciary”, he cleared.

The Hungarian government did not comment on the developments. However, Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said on a regular press briefing that “Hungary was making some changes in the judiciary system to meet the EU executive’s conditions”, Reuters noted. According to Gulyás, judiciary issues were the “last hurdle” in the way of the long-desired agreement on the RRF (recovery and resilience) funds.