Authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Hungary still cannot accept rule of law criteria attached to the EU’s budget and its coronavirus recovery fund. He said the political rules on respecting the rule of law should be dealt with separately.
He warned the explanatory declaration attached to the regulations, which prompted a senior Polish government member to say Poland might accept the package, would be unacceptable to Budapest.
Mr Orban said: “For us this solution, attaching some statement like a reminder on a sticky note attached on a piece of paper, it won’t work.
His warning comes as the EU remain locked in a longstanding battle with Poland and Hungary after they vetoed the bloc’s £1.6tn (€1.8tn) seven-year budget, as well as the £671bn (€750bn) coronavirus recovery.
The two countries are against plans to attach rule-of-law conditions to the disbursement of money.
Hungary and Poland blocked the EU’s seven-year budget and its post-crisis development fund for weeks, stopping £1.6 trillion (€1.8tn) worth of funds from reaching member states, some hurting for cash amid an economic crisis.
Budapest and Warsaw, which have been criticised for years for perceived backsliding on democratic standards, have said they would act and vote together on the rule of law issue, and Mr Orban said he would stick to that agreement.
He said there was no rush to get an agreement on the EU budget this year, adding if the Union does not have an agreement by January, it will have one later.
Mr Orban added: “Leave the legal status quo unchanged and everything will go smoothly and quickly.”
The Hungarian and Polish governments have been regularly criticised for their respective records on freedom of speech, freedom of the press and repeated attempts to interfere with the judiciary.
After Mr Orban and Polish President Andrzej Duda vetoed the budget, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned the bloc could take the issue to the courts.
She said: “We think that the conditionality mechanism is appropriate. It is proportionate, and it is necessary. And it is hard to imagine that anyone could object.
“But if someone does have legal doubts, there is a very clear path, they can go to the European Court of Justice, this is the place where we usually thrash out differences of opinion regarding legal tests, and not at the expense of millions of Europeans who are desperately waiting for our help, because we are in the middle of a deep, deep crisis.”
It comes after Mr Orban’s chief of staff warned the Brussels budget and its coronavirus recovery fund cannot take effect without Hungary’s approval and Budapest cannot accept the proposal in its present form on Thursday.
Gergely Gulyas said Hungary was open to further negotiations but it had the right of veto, and if the present EU proposal linking access to funds to a clause on respecting the rule of law was maintained “there will not be an agreement”.
Hungarians are deeply divided, with about half of voters backing Mr Orban’s interpretation that the EU wants to force lenient immigration regulations on Budapest, according to a poll by think-tank Median earlier this week.
Only about a third blame the crisis on Hungary’s shortfalls on the rule of law, Median said. The same poll showed 85 percent still backed EU membership.
Critics say Mr Orban, who has campaigned on a nationalist, anti-immigration platform, has systematically eroded democratic rights during his decade in power, weakening the independence of media, education, science, and cracking down on non-government organisations.
The Hungarian government has denied those charges.
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