The European Commission on Wednesday proposed unblocking \u20ac4.2 billion in cohesion funding for Hungary, frozen in 2022 over rule-of-law violations under former Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cohesion funding is an EU program aimed at supporting economic, social, and territorial reforms in lower-income member countries. Hungary, along with Poland, Italy and Romania, was the main recipient. Yet the EU froze 55 % of the funding in 2022 over corruption and public procurement concerns in Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government, which posed a risk to the EU\u2019s \u201cfinancial interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The EU\u2019s executive branch proposed to lift the restrictions Wednesday \u201cas it considers that Hungary has addressed the rule of law breaches affecting the EU budget,\u201d a press release noted. \u201cHungary has taken important steps to strengthen the rule of law and protect the Union\u2019s financial interests,\u201d Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unblocking EU funds has been a key priority for P\u00e9ter Magyar, who replaced Orb\u00e1n as prime minister in May after a seismic election victory. \u201cOne of our most important commitments during the campaign was that we were going to unlock the billions of euros that Hungarians deserve,\u201d he said in Brussels shortly after his election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Budapest has made significant progress tackling public procurement concerns, corruption and conflicts of interest since May. \u201cMore than a hundred pieces of legislation had to be amended,\u201d a government website read, citing anti-corruption reforms and the country joining the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office (EPPO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Commission\u2019s proposal is expected to be adopted by the Council, and will be \u201can important and positive step for Hungary and for the European Union,\u201d Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Commission will continue to engage constructively with the Hungarian authorities and to closely monitor developments. Sustaining the progress made will be important in the period ahead,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The European Commission on Wednesday proposed unblocking \u20ac4.2 billion in cohesion funding for Hungary, frozen in 2022 over rule-of-law violations under former Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s government. Cohesion funding is an EU program aimed at supporting economic, social, and territorial reforms in lower-income member countries. Hungary, along with Poland, Italy and Romania, was the main […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36788,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36786\/revisions\/36788"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}