Breaking! Hungary and Poland withdraw from the veto on EU budget

The Hungarian and Polish governments have accepted the German presidency’s proposal to settle the veto on the EU budget, and now the proposal awaits Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to accept the agreed framework, a Polish government source told Reuters. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reached a Hungarian government source, who also anonymously confirmed that an agreement had been reached.

According to Portfolio, Deutsche Welle shared the details of the German package offered in exchange for vetoes. Based on this, it is estimated that the Hungarian and Polish governments would make big concessions.

“We are preliminarily in agreement but there is some pressure … the aim is to have this done before the EU summit (on Thursday)”

– a government source requesting anonymity told Reuters. This pressure may indicate that the German presidency has already convened member states’ ambassadors in Brussels this afternoon for a conciliation on the EU budget. Now those involved in the case are waiting for the final confirmation in Brussels.

Bloomberg was informed by Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Gowin that an agreement had been reached, but he could not talk about its details. Portfolio also covered Gowin’s press conference this morning, in which he mentioned that “there is an agreement in the Warsaw-Berlin-Budapest triangle”, but it may also cover other European capitals. He also made it clear that he was very confident that an agreement would be reached.

Meanwhile, 444.hu reported that the news page of the Polish RMF radio presented the framework of the agreement. The point is that they do not resort to the rule of law mechanism, they adopt it by a qualified majority, but at the same time freeze its application. As has been the case for weeks, the Polish and Hungarian governments will have the opportunity to challenge the law in the European Court of Justice, and until there is a verdict, the mechanism will not be applied.

PM Orbán will certainly not have to face the withdrawal of EU funds before the next Hungarian parliamentary election, which is expected in the middle of 2022 at the earliest – suspects the newspaper.

According to the source, a detailed explanatory material will also be published on how and in what cases the rule of law mechanism can be used.

Meanwhile, the Polish domestic political situation also made the veto fragile. Also, Hungary could have lost at least € 4 billion net and Poland net € 65 billion if the recovery fund had really only been set up among the other 25 member states, in line with recent leaks.

Thus, the prospect of a significant loss of money also contributed to the eventual withdrawal of both the Polish and Hungarian governments’ vetoes.

Source: www.portfolio.hu