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Negotiations with the Orbán government on the use of grants from the Norwegian Fund for Hungary between 2014 and 2021 have accelerated, Népszava learned from Norwegian sources.
Officially, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs only told the newspaper directly requesting that “In general, the countries of the European Free Trade Association – Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland – trust that the only agreement that has not yet been reached it will soon be covered by a suitable settlement. start the programs on time. “At the same time, they emphasized that they did not provide information on the ongoing negotiations, although it was also noted that Hungary was the only EU member state out of 15 eligible for the Norwegian Fund that could not reach a agreement with the Norwegian government.
The newspaper’s information was also confirmed by sources at Fidesz, who added that the positions were somewhat convergent and that, despite discussions, Hungary would definitely want to use the approximately HUF 75 billion (EUR 214 million) that are available to the country. for development purposes. The Norwegian and EEA funds were also created because the four countries mentioned above are not members of the European Union, but benefit from economic integration and thus support the recovery of less developed EU member states to through various programs.
The document also recalls the debate on which donor country Norway and the Hungarian government have been unable to reach an agreement for essentially six years. In essence, the main obstacle was the distribution of funds to NGOs, as the Norwegian side thought radically differently from the Hungarian state, which wanted to take full control of the distribution of funds.
They also write about what kind of compromise can resolve the deadlock. According to the newspaper, neither the Norwegian nor the Hungarian side will rule out the possibility of a multi-stakeholder consortium managing the grants, and even actors “loved” by the Hungarian government may be included. In any case, this structure would be unprecedented: in Poland, a three-member consortium manages the € 53 million civil fund there. It is true that none of its members can be said to have a close relationship with the conservative government led by the Law and Justice Party, not even with the local Báthory Foundation organization, such as the György Soros Open Society Foundation. By the way, the Norwegian government has recently suspended the payment of various subsidies that would have gone to Polish cities that have declared themselves “LGBTQ-free municipalities”.
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