Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony is ‘directly responsible’ for the freezing of the EU funds due to Hungary, MEP for the right-wing governing Fidesz party Tamás Deutsch has told reporters at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, last week.
Mayor Karácsony was also present in Strasbourg, despite not being a sitting member of the EP, to talk about organazing the Budapest Pride Parade last month, despite restrictions by the national government.
‘In his cynical way, Gergely Karácsony comes to Brussels and Strasbourg to personally ensure that Hungary does not receive these funds,’ MEP Deutsch has stated, as quoted by Hirtv.hu.
‘The municipality of the capital that he leads maintains and finances a lobby office here in Brussels to lobby against Budapest and Hungary, and then he has the nerve to complain. So I suggest that they stop scheming against their own country, and say that the accusations on which they are basing the suspension of the money that is rightfully due to us are untrue. Then Hungary will immediately have access to these funds, and the Budapest developments that would be essential for the city can be made,’ he concluded.
The European Union first froze its COVID-19 recovery fund payments to Hungary in July 2021 over supposed rule of law concerns. This took place at the time when the Child Protection Act was passed by the National Assembly of Hungary, which the Western mainstream deemed to be discriminatory against LGBT people.
Since then, EU cohesion funds to Hungary have also been frozen. With the release of €10 billion to Hungary in December 2023, around €18 billion in EU funding to the country is being held up, which is around 8 per cent of Hungary’s annual GDP.
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