Member state leaders agreed on the EU budget and recovery fund



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An agreement was reached on the next multi-year budget of the European Union and the coronavirus recovery fund at the summit of leaders of the member states in Brussels on Thursday. Announced Charles Michel, President of the European Council. At the moment, the Belgian politician has only added enough to Twitter to start rolling out the financial packages and rebuilding the economies hit by the epidemic.

The exact details are not yet known, but in our article below we have summarized what can be known about the previously announced proposal by which the German Presidency would lift the veto of the governments of Hungary and Poland. This can provide a framework for the agreement, especially since Viktor Orban Even before the start of the negotiations in Brussels, he spoke of a very close agreement.

They rarely pay the same price for victory as they do now for Orban.

Orbán has managed to ensure that the rule of law mechanism doesn’t hurt him by 2022, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt him anyway. At the same time, all its political capital has been depleted, the Visegrad interest group has disintegrated, and Angela Merkel will not always be there to make a compromise.

Following the announcement, the Hungarian Prime Minister said that common sense prevailed, because in difficult times, during the epidemic and economic crisis, there is no time for ideological and political debates that hinder action, and thus the unity of Europe has been preserved. . He added that there are proposals on the table that “we Hungarians do not like,” but the danger of forcing the country to make decisions that it does not want to make with budgetary means has been avoided. So, according to Orbán, “we had a nice evening” and you can chill the champagne for the celebration.

The governments of Hungary and Poland have opposed the possibility of withdrawing EU aid to governments that violate fundamental EU values ​​through the so-called rule of law mechanism. They couldn’t be stopped from introducing it because they had enough blackmail budget, but with a veto on the seven-year budget and the $ 750 billion recovery package, they had great blackmail potential.

According to news leaked these days Angela Merkel Under the leadership of the German Chancellor, an agreement has been reached, the essence of which is that the rule of law mechanism will be adopted, but will not be applied before 2022, and the governments of Hungary and Poland can request a judicial review of the EU. Furthermore, the rule of law criteria are only expected to be held accountable in the event of non-compliance with the EU budget, that is, mainly due to corruption cases according to first interpretations, and not in general. And according to the news, it was especially important for the Hungarian government not to threaten to withdraw support before the 2022 parliamentary elections.

MTI writes

According to an agreement reached by the leaders of the 27 member states, a clause will be attached to the regulation stating that a mechanism to protect EU funds can only be put in place if the actions of a member state harm the financial interests of the union. European.

It is also a question, for the moment, what the European Parliament will say about the agreement, under the pressure of which the mechanism of the rule of law has been tightened compared to the summer negotiation of the leaders of the Member States. The President of the EP, the Italian David sassoli He said on Thursday that it will take time for parliament to examine the German presidency’s proposal, but stressed that they will not accept a change in the convention that parliament had concluded with the German presidency. “We have worked very hard for European citizens to condition the disbursement of funds from the EU budget in the long term and the recovery fund to offset the economic damage caused by the coronavirus epidemic to the rule of law. That can no longer be questioned, ”he said.



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