Poland: Veto the Commission’s proposal to “freeze” the disbursement of 7.5 billion to Hungary

Poland said today it would oppose “any move” by Brussels to strip Hungary of 7.5 billion euros in EU funding over corruption concerns in the country.

The European Commission today highlighted “irregularities” and “shortcomings” in Hungary’s public procurement procedures, the “abnormally” high proportion of unique bids for these contracts, as well as the absence of checks for conflicts of interest and for prosecutions in cases where there are suspicions of scam.

“Poland will oppose with all its power any move by the European institutions aimed at depriving a member state, in this case Hungary, of funds in a completely unauthorized way,” said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki during a press briefing.

The head of the nationalist-populist Polish government, who is also in conflict with Brussels who accuse him of not respecting the rule of law, reminded that his Hungarian counterpart and ally Viktor Orbán has already prepared “a draft agreement with the European Commission ».

The Commission has given a deadline of a few weeks to Budapest to proceed with reforms.

The Commission has proposed to the Council, the institution that represents the Member States and to which the final decision rests, to suspend 65% of the funds of three programs linked to the cohesion policy, a figure representing an amount of 7.5 billion euros.