The year has started with very bad news for Hungary: it will not receive at least 1,040 million euros of European funds for its attacks on the rule of law. It is a definitive loss; He will not be able to collect them later if he repairs the damage caused by the ultra-conservative Government of Viktor Orbán. The losses of the country that has presided over the Council of the EU until December 31 may increase as time passes and the deadlines for spending execution expire, since it still has between 21,000 and 22,000 million of both structural funds and the Plan frozen. of Recovery.
Hungary’s attacks on the rule of law are so many and varied that when it comes to breaking down the sanctions imposed by the European Union to correct the situation, there is a mess in which some decisions overlap with others and there are funds withheld twice. This is observed in the structural and cohesion funds. To receive that money, member states have to comply with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, something Budapest does not fully do. It does not fight corruption; does not respect academic freedom; does not comply with asylum laws, and violates the rights of children.
All these shortcomings have led to the suspension of almost 11,000 of a total of 21,900 million (counting the 1,000 that have just been lost). But, in addition, a double blockage weighs on the money still suspended. Not prosecuting fraud has meant freezing 6.7 billion euros through a coercive tool (conditionality mechanisms) that the European institutions have provided to protect the community budget from corruption and embezzlement.
To this account we must add the money from the recovery plan, 10.4 billion. However, for the funds to flow, the ultra-conservative Executive has to deploy reforms that reverse its attacks on the rule of law and ensure judicial independence. None of this has been done yet and, therefore, these resources do not flow to a country in economic crisis that has ended 2024 with a deficit in its public accounts of 5.4%, and a forecast for the year that has just begun of 4.6%, according to the forecasts of the European Commission.
As if that were not enough, in June, Hungary was fined 200 million for not complying with a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU regarding the reception of refugees during the crisis of 2015 and 2016, plus one million for each day that passes without fulfill it.
However, none of this discourages the Orbán Administration, the only EU leader whom Vladimir Putin has congratulated on the New Year. In his constant attempt to link, without evidence, migration and crime, this Thursday, the Magyar prime minister left a message on the social network in a flea market in the German city committed by a Saudi, who, however, was very critical of Islam and was close to the German far-right AfD. That message in X is just one of several that he has left against the EU in a few hours.
Another recent proof of this is in the conflict that has just opened with Poland by giving asylum to a former Polish deputy minister, Marcel Romanowski, prosecuted for embezzlement. This former senior government official is a member of the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party, now in the Polish opposition, and a fundamental ally of Orbán in Brussels during the 10 years he headed the Warsaw Executive between 2014 and 2024.
