Ukraine to get EUR 366bn over next seven years from EU budget, says the Orbán cabinet

Ukraine will get 366 billion euros from the next seven-year budget of the European Union according to the calculations of Hungary’s government, that is to say every fifth euro paid into the budget by European taxpayers will end up, directly or indirectly, in Ukraine, János Bóka, the EU affairs minister, said on public radio Sunday morning.

Ukraine to get EUR 366bn

On the EUR 2,000 billion EU budget framework, Bóka said a 100 billion euro fund is earmarked as direct support for Ukraine, but the country will also benefit from the EU’s defence industry spending, the European Peace Facility, weapons purchase funds as well as the Erasmus, Horizon and cross-border cooperation programmes, he said.

It is unprecedented that budgetary planning in the European Union should focus not on member states or European citizens but the interests of an “external entity,” the minister said.

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According to the Commission’s plans, the common agricultural policy fund and the cohesion funds would be replaced by uniform national plans, which would include agricultural funds and cohesion funds as well as home affairs funds, Bóka said.

The sum of these funds would amount to less than half of the total budget in the next seven years as compared to two-thirds in the current budget, he added.

Agricultural and cohesion funds will be the biggest losers

Agricultural and cohesion funds will be the biggest losers of the new budget, of which Hungary has been a prominent beneficiary, Bóka said, adding that these funds would be tied to the adoption of a so-called national plan.

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The national plan would include measures by member states similar to the current recovery fund reform plan, that is to say the commission would expect alignment on political issues, and if this does not happen, the member states concerned will not have access to the funds at all, he said.

“Our experience is that this conditionality has been used by the Commission to exert political and ideological pressure, and we have no reason to doubt that this will continue to be the case in the future,” Bóka said.

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