{"id":25680,"date":"2026-04-29T02:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T02:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/25680\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T02:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T02:19:08","slug":"hungarys-magyar-meets-von-der-leyen-to-game-plan-unlocking-frozen-eu-funds-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/25680\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary\u2019s Magyar meets von der Leyen to game-plan unlocking frozen EU funds \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Magyar\u2019s team has also been working with some of his predecessor\u2019s ministers and civil servants to advance the technical work required to make the reforms, three other officials with knowledge of the proceedings said.<\/p>\n<p>Andr\u00e1s K\u00e1rm\u00e1n, Magyar\u2019s nominee for finance minister, Istv\u00e1n Kapit\u00e1ny, tapped for economy minister, and Anita Orb\u00e1n, the incoming foreign minister, met a high-level Commission delegation, including von der Leyen\u2019s Cabinet chief Bjoern Seibert, on Saturday and prepared the ground for the Magyar-von der Leyen meeting. Before that, the teams met in Budapest on April 18 and 19.<\/p>\n<p>The first step to unlocking Hungary\u2019s recovery money is complying with 27 EU-mandated \u201csuper milestones,\u201d covering procurement, judicial independence and academic freedom. Because Tisza has won more than two-thirds of the seats in parliament, Magyar is expected to be able to get those changes approved quickly.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2194621122-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6388767\"  \/>European People\u2019s Party leader Manfred Weber with Ursula Von der Leyen in Brussels in January 2025. Weber said the European Parliament should halt Article 7 proceedings against Hungary. | Frederick Florin\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The harder part is carrying out the more detailed reforms and projects needed to claim the funds before they expire. If Hungary fails to recover the full amount, it could try to extend the deadline by transferring the money to its national promotional bank.<\/p>\n<p>A separate workaround under discussion would involve using post-Covid funds to finish projects already financed through regional funds, two of the officials quoted above said.<\/p>\n<p>Magyar is also seeking a broader reset with Brussels, including relief from daily fines imposed in a migration dispute, Commission approval for Hungary\u2019s request for billions in loans from the EU\u2019s SAFE program, and a path for Hungarian universities to rejoin Erasmus after they were sidelined over academic freedom concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Magyar\u2019s team has also been working with some of his predecessor\u2019s ministers and civil servants to advance the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[2584,12845,4781,367,2127,54,2874,258,2221,58,72,2778,2877,7395,107,61,511,16875,63,64,1070],"class_list":{"0":"post-25680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-european-parliament","8":"tag-banks","9":"tag-bjorn-seibert","10":"tag-breaches","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-donald-tusk","13":"tag-elections","14":"tag-eu-funding","15":"tag-european-parliament","16":"tag-finance","17":"tag-hungary","18":"tag-migration","19":"tag-parliament","20":"tag-peter-magyar","21":"tag-procurement","22":"tag-rights","23":"tag-rule-of-law","24":"tag-sanctions","25":"tag-terry-reintke","26":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","27":"tag-viktor-orban","28":"tag-waste"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}