Hungary must receive a budgetary and legal guarantee that the EU funds earmarked for it, be it the Erasmus and Horizon education and research programs or the Cohesion Fund, can only be used by Hungary, the Fidesz Group in the European Parliament (EP) emphasized in a statement.
“The European Commission’s package requesting 75 billion euros in extra money for the EU’s seven-year budget is on the table, but we still have not received any reassuring answers to our questions: exactly how much money has been paid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, from what source and how has it been used?” the group highlighted.
The Fidesz MEPs also want to know how the interest burden on the joint EU borrowing has doubled while several countries have not yet received money from the recovery fund.
They also questioned how it is possible that in the third year of the EU budget cycle, only a few percent of cohesion funds are being paid out, while billions more would be spent on resettling illegal migrants in Europe and increasing Brussels bureaucrats’ salaries.
The European Commission asked the 27 member states in June to add further billions to the budget for the period up to 2027. The body did not hide why the idea of increasing payments had been mooted: it said the amount would make it easier to deal with Ukraine, immigration and economic competition, while Brussels’s bureaucrats salaries would also be increased. In addition to Austria, Germany, Poland and Hungary have indicated their unwillingness to support the demands of the EU’s leadership. The Polish ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), said the EU could bankrupt itself if it refuses to stop giving further aid to Ukraine.
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán highlighted that the money is intended to be used, among other things, to give 50 billion euros to Ukraine, but pointed out that the European Union has already given 70 billion euros for this purpose over the past year and a half, and it is not known what this money has been used for. It is also unclear who will control how it is spent, he reminded.
The group recalled that while the European Commission’s proposal for an additional €75 billion from Member States for the EU’s seven-year budget is still on the table, MEPs are already discussing the 2024 EU budget.
Andor Deli, a Fidesz MEP, said at Wednesday’s meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets that the Fidesz group in the EP will table amendments to the 2024 EU budget that will protect the funds Hungary is entitled to. Furthermore, the increase in the interest burden of the recovery fund in the 2024 EU budget should be linked to the outcome of the negotiations on the multi-annual framework, he added.
It must be ruled out that the funds earmarked for Hungary are spent for the benefit of other countries or purposes,”
he emphasized.
The politician stressed that the Fidesz group is committed to the EU membership of the Western Balkan countries, which is why it proposes to increase pre-accession funds for the candidate countries in 2024. The increase would send an important signal to all citizens of the candidate countries.
Source: Hungary Today
