Hungary’s Magyar meets with EU leadership in Brussels

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar will meet Friday for the first time since taking office with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels in a bid to unlock billions of euros frozen over the democratic backsliding of his predecessor.

Partly by campaigning on forging stronger ties with the European Union, Magyar’s earthquake success in the April election ended the 16-year rule of Viktor Orban, who had vilified von der Leyen and other powerbrokers in the 27-nation bloc as he hollowed out institutional checks and balances in Hungary.

Those actions, and concerns over corruption and the erosion of judicial independence under Orban, prompted the bloc to freeze the billions in funding to Budapest in 2022.

A year later, the commission found that the government had carried out sufficient reforms to have around 10.2 billion euros ($12.1 billion) released. After Magyar’s party Tisza won a super-majority in parliament, which will enable deep and quick reforms, leaders in both Brussels and Budapest prioritised releasing the funds as soon as possible to help Hungary’s slumped economy.

The funds are split between 10 billion euros of COVID recovery funds and 6.3 billion euros in the cohesion funds designed to lift up struggling economies within the EU.

The teams from Brussels and Budapest are working to first unlock the COVID funds because they are set to expire in August.

Magyar has said his government is carrying out the crucial changes, like restoring judicial independence, academic and media freedom, and launching broad anti-corruption efforts, in order to get access to the money.

He’s struck an optimistic tone when speaking about reaching an agreement in Brussels. In a social media post on Friday, he wrote he would soon meet with von der Leyen, where “we will reach a political agreement on the hundreds of billions of (Hungarian) forints in EU funding allocated to our country.”