Orbán cabinet: There was a lot of pressure from the European Parliament on the Commission
If Hungarian legislation adopted over the past few months is examined objectively and on a professional basis, “then we can get Hungary’s suspended EU money released in the next few months,” the head of the prime minister’s office told conservative German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on Monday.
In the interview, Gergely Gulyás noted that in August, after the government was formed, a strategic agreement was signed with the European Union with a view to concluding the conditionality procedure.
“At the same time, we saw that there was a lot of pressure from the European Parliament on the Commission,”
he added.
Hungary has already fulfilled the majority of the 27 “milestones” that the EC had set as conditions, he said. An Integrity Authority has been set up and already started operations, he added.
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Mr. Gulyás seems to be ignoring some facts:
On November 30, the European Commission concluded that “Hungary failed to adequately implement central aspects of the necessary 17 remedial measures agreed under the general conditionality mechanism by the deadline of 19 November, as it had committed to. These relate, in particular, to the effectiveness of the newly established Integrity Authority and the procedure for the judicial review of prosecutorial decisions”.
The latter is not particularly surprising since, due to Politician heel dragging (we only agreed in August, right), the Integrity Authority started about a month ago (November 19).
The European Commission goes on to state that: “Notwithstanding steps taken, there is still a continued risk to the EU budget given that the remedial measures that still need to be fulfilled are of a structural and horizontal nature.”
https://www.pubaffairsbruxelles.eu/eu-institution-news/commission-finds-that-hungary-has-not-progressed-enough-in-its-reforms-and-must-meet-essential-milestones-for-its-recovery-and-resilience-funds/