By Krisztina Than
BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Talks over the European Union’s recovery funds and budget should continue and there will be an agreement in the end, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told state radio on Friday.
The nationalist governments of Hungary and Poland have refused to back the financial plan for the whole EU, even though they are beneficiaries, because the money is conditional on respecting the rule of law.
“The talks should be continued and in the end we will come to an agreement, that’s how this usually goes,” Orban said.
He said there could be several options for resolving the deadlock “that are acceptable to Hungary and Poland … where legal aspects decide and not a political majority”. He gave no details.
The Polish and Hungarian veto is likely to delay hundreds of billions of euros in EU funds at a time when the 27-nation bloc is grappling with a second wave of the coronavirus, with its economy likely to shrink in the last three months of the year in a double-dip recession.
Orban, whose government issued a eurobond this month, said that irrespective of the current political debates over EU funds, all the development projects Hungary planned for the next 10 years would be carried out.
Hungary’s economy – which has been to a great extent dependent on EU funds – is in a deeper-than-expected recession due to the coronavirus and the rebound next year will also be slower than previously anticipated, according to analysts and the government’s own forecast.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and John Stonestreet)
