EC Says It’ll Withhold $1B If Changes Aren’t Made
December 9, 2024—The European Commission is on the verge of withholding €1 billion in funds to EU-member Hungary unless that government reforms 17 measures by the end of the year. The EC is already blocking €12 billion in funds to Hungary.
Among the measures that the EC demands Hungary complete are anti-corruption and conflict-of-interest legislation, according to reporting by Politico Europe.
Hungary is increasingly at odds with the European Union under the right-wing leadership of Viktor Orbán. EU lawmakers have grown increasingly discontent with EU-member Hungary over a series of infringements on human rights as well as concerns about corruption. In 2022, the EC announced that Hungary’s government could no longer be considered a democracy and had evolved into an an “electoral autocracy.”
Orbán, the populist, nationalist leader, has also raised concerns in Europe over his increasingly cozy relations with Eastern-bloc countries like China and Russia. For example, in 2021, he opposed an EU statement against China’s security law over Hong Kong. Furthermore, Hungary recently opened the Chinese-built Fudan Hungary University in Budapest.
More recently, he published a book criticizing the reemergence of “Cold War mentality.” Instead of “bloc formation,” Orban is advocating East-West connectivity.
