LIST: Here’s why Hungary has not received the EU funds yet

The EU withholds several billion euros of funding from Hungary due to rule of law concerns. It is still unclear whether the Hungarian government is willing to comply with each of the EU’s requests.

Hungary has to change many aspects of its internal policies to comply with the rule of law requirements of the EU. Otherwise, the block will freeze indefinitely the funds that the country would be otherwise entitled to. But index.hu reports that there is still a long way to go before EU funds are transferred to the Hungarian budget.

The site cites sources with good knowledge of the situation from Brussels saying that alongside the rule of law requirements other specific issues, such as academic independence or certain passages of the child protection law have to be modified.

• Read also: EU funds will not arrive on time to Hungary

17 items and the list just grows

Index writes that overall the EU has frozen over EUR 21 billion of funds that Hungary would be entitled to between 2021-2027. The site also lists 17 corrective measures that Hungary must comply with:

• Strengthening the prevention, detection, and correction of infringements and irregularities in the implementation of EU funds through the newly created Integrity Authority.
• Establishment of an Anti-Corruption Agency.
• Strengthening the anti-corruption framework.
• Ensure transparency in the use of EU funding by public interest trusts.
• Introduce a specific procedure for major offences relating to the exercise of public authority or the management of public property.
• Strengthen audit and control mechanisms to ensure proper use of EU funding.
• Reduce the proportion of single tender procedures financed by EU funds.
• Reduce the proportion of single tender procedures financed from the national budget.
• Develop a reporting tool to monitor and report on procurement procedures closed with a single tender.
• Develop the Electronic Procurement System (EKR) to increase transparency.
• Develop a performance measurement framework to assess the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of public procurement.
• Adopt an action plan to increase the level of competition in public procurement.
• Provide training on public procurement practices for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises.
• Develop a support scheme to reimburse the costs of participation of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in public procurement.
• Implementation of Arachne (it is an integrated IT tool for data mining, which helps track information on all EU-funded projects and screen potential for abuse of power).
• Strengthen cooperation with OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office.

The EU identified these 17 corrective measures back on 18 September 2022, and as index.hu writes the list has grown to 27 items.

Questions around judicial independence

According to index.hu, the European Commission is most concerned with the issue of judicial independence, which blocks nearly 98 percent of all cohesion funds.

However, Péter Heck, Head of the Faculty of Law Department at ELTE told index.hu that the government should also include the proposals of the National Council of the Judiciary and civil society organisations, such as the Hungarian branch of Amnesty International, who criticised the government for the lack of independence of the Constitutional Court. Current Chief Prosecutor of Hungary, Péter Polt spent 7 years at Fidesz. The Hungarian opposition and the EU have previously criticised his appointment due to a conflict of interest.

Read alsoLIST: Here’s why Hungary has not received the EU funds yet

Source: index.hu