On Thursday 24 November, at the end of the Visegrád Group summit in Košice, Slovakia, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that his government was implementing the package of seventeen reforms agreed upon with the European Commission in September (see EUROPE 13024/9), designed to address concerns about the Rule of law in Hungary and protect the EU budget.
“We have delivered on everything we committed to”, he said, expecting the college of Commissioners to acknowledge this on Wednesday 30 November and lift the proposed financial sanctions against his country.
On the same day, the European Parliament called on the Commission, on the contrary, to keep the sanctions until Hungary has demonstrated that it respects its commitments and complies with the European case-law on the Rule of law.
“The money should not be released until Hungary has taken the necessary measures to protect EU funds and rectify violations of the Rule of law”, said Petri Sarvamaa (Finnish), EPP group spokesman on the Committee on Budgetary Control. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion and Lionel Changeur)