The countries of the European Union have reached an agreement on Monday that secures macro-financial assistance of 18 billion euros to Ukraine for next year and has the unanimous support of the 27, including Hungary, which blocked the agreement a week ago to try to pressure its partners and prevent them from freezing billions in European funds.
However, the EU-27 have also agreed to freeze 6.3 billion euros in cohesion funds for Hungary due to the lack of progress in the fight against corruption and the strengthening of the rule of law required of Viktor Orbán’s government, diplomatic sources have informed Europa Press.
The agreement was reached at a meeting in Brussels at ambassadorial level that still needs the formal approval of the capitals by written procedure in the coming hours.
In this way, the Member States revise downwards the initial proposal of Brussels to freeze 65 percent of the affected programs, that is, 7,500 million euros, and set the suspension at 55 percent to take into account the reforms that Hungary has begun to develop this fall.
The agreement also means giving a ‘green light’ to Hungary’s recovery plan, but makes any disbursement of the 5.8 billion euros for reforms and investments conditional on the Hungarian government complying with specific measures on anti-corruption and rule of law, conditions directly linked to the freezing of regional funds.
