Hungary in bid to sway EU over funds

BUDAPEST－The Hungarian government has asked the European Commission "not to punish the Hungarian voters" with the suspension of funds over Prime Minister Viktor Orban's renewed mandate in Sunday's parliamentary elections.

The commission is set to trigger a new, powerful disciplinary procedure allowing the disbursement of European Union funds to be suspended. It formally notified Budapest on Tuesday.

The European Commission "will now send the letter of formal notification to start the conditionality mechanism", European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told a plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.

The conditionality mechanism was created in 2020, after a summit at the height of the coronavirus pandemic that agreed to build a pile of grants and loans amounting to 800 billion euros ($872 billion) for EU countries to recover.

Some EU members, including the Netherlands and Nordic countries, demanded the conditionality mechanism to put guard rails around the spending of the money.

Hungary and Poland challenged the new procedure in the EU's top court. But the European Court of Justice gave the greenlight for its use in February.

Orban's government and the EU have been at odds in recent years over a series of issues, ranging from the "rule-of-law" to minority rights.

Orban's conservative Fidesz party won a fourth consecutive super-majority in the general elections on Sunday.

In response to the EU executive's announcement, Gergely Gulyas, Orban's chief of staff, urged the commission "not to punish Hungarian voters" for expressing an opinion "that Brussels does not like".

"The fundamental rules of democracy must be accepted by the Commission," he said, urging it to "return to common sense and dialogue".

The procedure could ultimately deny Orban's government more than 40 billion euros in EU funding.

However, it is likely to take months to complete. The ultimate decision will rest with the Council of the EU, comprising representatives from each member state.

Agencies - Xinhua