The budget proposal presented on Tuesday by Finland which currently holds the EU presidency is completely unacceptable for Hungary as it further reduces cohesion funds within development allocations, Justice Minister Judit Varga said on Tuesday after the meeting of the General Affairs Council of EU Member States held in Luxembourg.

In an interview given to Hungarian journalists after a ministerial meeting concerned with the EU’s next seven-year budget for the period starting in 2021, Mrs Varga stressed that the Finnish presidency has failed to submit an impartial proposal.

Several Member States indicated that the proposal does not reflect their own opinions and opinions held by others, and it likewise failed to take into consideration the request of the country group called Friends of Cohesion which asked for an increase in cohesion funds even compared with the draft of the European Commission.

The proposal features a grand total on the revenue side which is substantially lower than the Commission’s corresponding figure, and this, in combination with the cessation of Britain’s EU membership (Brexit), would result in substantially less funds for the EU. It is also unfavourable that Hungary would have access to much less cohesion funding than during the present fiscal period.

Therefore, the proposal is unacceptable both on the contribution and the cohesion funds sides; it is not a good basis for a political debate, she underlined.

The Justice Minister said it is also unacceptable that the disbursement of funds would be tied to the rule of law, and that cohesion funds would also serve to finance the integration of migrants. In the context of the rule of law, she said at this point in time there is no draft that “safely regulates this issue from a legal point of view, and this means a clear veto”.

She said the proposal pushes the adoption of an EU budget even further in time as the text bears in mind the interests of net contributor countries and violates the interests of several Member States by virtue of the fact that it does not intend to find a common denominator among different emerging needs, she underlined.

According to Mrs Varga’s information, as expected, there will be an orientation debate about the budget proposal at the two-day summit of the heads of state and government of Member States of the European Union starting on Thursday.

(Ministry of Justice/MTI)