An opposition politician recently said that he felt it was his patriotic duty to stop EU money from coming to Hungary.Continue reading
With the amendment of the Justice Act, the Government will meet all the conditions for the disbursement of EU cohesion funds within a few weeks, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, said at the Government Information Meeting on Thursday.
He stressed that although there was no legal basis for the claims, we met the conditions and in many cases exceeded them. In about a month we will be able to send invoices to Brussels, which we hope will pay them,” Gulyás said.
The money would not be called from the EU recovery fund, but from the part of the seven-year budget not covered by the conditionality procedure. The aim is to ensure that all funds are available to Hungary, he said. He added that there was “serious opposition” to this in Brussels and among the left-wing Hungarian opposition, but asked them to
stand up for Hungarian teachers, Hungarian health care and the Hungarian economy”.
Gergely Gulyás. Photo: MTI/Kovács Tamás
Speaking about the budget, the minister said that the government will submit next year’s draft budget to Parliament on 30 May, which may adopt it on 7 July. He added that next year’s budget has to be planned amid numerous difficulties, “as we are living in times of war”. Nevertheless, the government will maintain the good practice of submitting the draft budget in the spring, because this will create predictability, send an important message to the economy and set out the economic policy objectives that the government wants to achieve next year, even in the more difficult circumstances, he said. He noted that the budget deficit is expected to be 2.9 percent.
Reflecting on the Pope’s visit to Hungary has also confirmed the government’s moral conviction that an immediate ceasefire and peace is the only correct position on the war in Ukraine. Gergely Gulyás said that if the Vatican is preparing a peace plan, as the Pope has indicated, Hungary will support this peace mission.
He reiterated that the government’s position on the issue of war remains unchanged: it calls for an immediate ceasefire and peace negotiations. The scale of the destruction is already immeasurable, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their lives in the war so far, and lives can only be saved by a ceasefire, the minister added.
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