Brussels, 30/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 30 January, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban travelled to Brussels to plead his case on a series of files - and in particular Hungary's exit from the excessive deficit procedure “this year”, he said. A Commission report published the previous day, however, called on Budapest to give priority to budgetary consolidation measures supporting growth and confidence. Orban's meeting with President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso also allowed an update of files on which the Commission had started infringement procedures at the beginning of 2012 and had even petitioned the Court of Justice - for example, the files on the laws on Hungarian authority of data protection or on the retirement age for judges. On the latter issue, Budapest sent its new draft law last week, which now sets the retirement age at 65 - as opposed to the limit of 62 that the government wanted. Orban and Barroso also discussed the timetable for banking union, which Hungary - although outside the eurozone - is observing with interest. In addition, they discussed the very slow progress on the loan request which Hungary made of the Commission, the IMF and the ECB at the end of 2011 and which has still not been accepted. At the end of their meeting, Barroso nevertheless spoke of the “good cooperation” on all the procedures with the Hungarian authorities and welcomed the fact “that case by case, step by step” all the difficulties are beginning to be resolved (our translation). (SP/transl.fl)