But despite the good intentions, Brussels and Budapest are at odds over how much money Hungary should get from the post-Covid fund allocation, according to the officials, who have knowledge of the negotiations and were granted anonymity to discuss the confidential talks. The Commission recommended requesting only the grants, while Hungary wants to claim the full amount.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very optimistic about releasing\u00a0all\u00a0the blocked funds,\u201d\u00a0said Kinga Koll\u00e1r, an MEP from Magyar\u2019s Tisza party.<\/p>\n
The allocation is split between \u20ac6.5 billion in grants, which would not need to be repaid, and \u20ac3.9 billion in loans, which need to be paid back at a favorable interest rate. Magyar\u2019s incoming administration has until Aug. 31 to formally request the money, while the Commission has a deadline of Dec. 31 to make the payments.<\/p>\n
The Commission is arguing there isn\u2019t enough time to release the full \u20ac10.4 billion, since payouts are contingent on Hungary meeting specific reform targets. Funds in the form of loans would also add to Budapest\u2019s strained public finances, with debt already hovering around 75 percent of GDP and the deficit \u2015 the difference between how much is spent and how much is brought in \u2015 projected to be near 7 percent of GDP in 2026.<\/p>\n
If Magyar accepts Brussels\u2019 advice, it will mean him leaving \u20ac3.9 billion on the table. For Hungarian negotiators, coming home with anything less than the full package would look politically underwhelming after a campaign built around a total reset with Brussels.<\/p>\n
Last week Magyar said he\u2019s confident that the EU will \u201cbe sufficiently flexible to allow Hungary to draw every eurocent of the funds they are entitled to.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But despite the good intentions, Brussels and Budapest are at odds over how much money Hungary should get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[6020,211,17305,210,2916,7317,4930,3039,577,11648,3654,5028,22069,6552,1888,4038],"class_list":{"0":"post-76968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-banks","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-breaches","11":"tag-brussels","12":"tag-conflict","13":"tag-debt","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-hungary","16":"tag-interest-rates","17":"tag-meps","18":"tag-negotiations","19":"tag-payments","20":"tag-pensions","21":"tag-peter-magyar","22":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","23":"tag-viktor-orban"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116533289843593858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}