MADRID, Dec. 13 (.) –
The Government of Hungary has avoided any hint of defeat in its reactions to the agreement within the EU on the delivery of funds and has considered the objectives that it had set as “achieved”, although in practice 6,300 million euros will still remain blocked in cohesion funds due to doubts regarding the fight against corruption and strengthening the rule of law.
The Hungarian Minister for Regional Development, Tibor Navracsics, responsible for the negotiations, has defended before the media in Budapest that the government of Viktor Orbán had its education strategy “clear from the beginning”. “We have met all the objectives that we set ourselves in June,” he said, according to statements released by the Executive itself.
Likewise, he hopes to resume the dialogue in January to unblock the 6,300 million pending -initially Brussels came to raise the retention of 7,500 million euros-, with an eye on the month of March, when the new term will expire to put into put into practice the demands that Brussels has put on the table.
The Minister of Justice, Judit Varga, has also considered Monday’s agreement an “achievement”, which she has attributed to the “much work” of her government in recent months. “Hungary has fulfilled her commitments” and would now be “on track” towards the following goals, she declared when she arrived at the meeting of EU ministers for European affairs in Brussels.
The Hungarian Administration has tried to emphasize the European ‘green light’ for Hungary’s recovery plan, despite the fact that the disbursement is not guaranteed pending reforms either. Navracsics has explained that this second package, of 5,800 million euros, will go to renewable energy and digitization projects.
Budapest has ensured that Hungary can also be left out of the minimum rate of 15 percent of corporate tax and that the macro-financial aid for Ukraine in 2023, of 18,000 million euros, will not come in any case through a common debt.
