The EU gives Poland and Hungary 24 hours to lift their veto
Hungary and Poland are breaking the patience of the rest of their 25 EU partners. Their veto of the recovery fund and the community multi-annual budget for 2021-2027, in total more than 1.8 billion euros, troubles a lot. Europe needs the stimulus in the face of the pandemic and tries to settle other complicated cases, to agree on the future commercial relationship with the United Kingdom.
For this reason, the EU asked Budapest and Warsaw to lift their blockade this Tuesday, at the latest, on the great budget package, for rejecting the conditionality of the rule of law. If they do not, they will be left out of the recovery fund of 750,000 million euros, without receiving European funds that largely benefit them.
Diplomatic sources commented that the EU needs to agree with Hungary and Poland on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. If they do not do it, they will have to go to scenario B, which implies creating an alternative that replicates the recovery fund’s effects without the two rebels.
Their veto is expected to come up during an EU summit
The leaders of Hungary and Poland, Viktor Orban and Mateusz Morawiecki, have insisted that they will not give their blessing unless the rule of law conditionality attached to EU funds is substantially diluted or eliminated.
The agreement involves preparing a statement that limits the application of this conditionality only to the cases included in the mechanism. Such are cases of corruption or problems with the independence of justice. It is not applied arbitrarily to punish these two countries for other issues on which they disagree, for example, the rejection of refugees.
However, as it was included in the final agreement of the mechanism, any reference to the judicial system is also considered an intrusion by both countries.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto asserted that they were strong in their opposition after meeting his Polish counterpart. Szijjarto stated that they support each other, and they will not give space to any effort that tries to break this cooperation.
If both Member States persist in their veto, a senior EU official was quite sure last week that an alternative could be found and implemented relatively quickly to replicate the recovery fund’s effects without them.
The Hungarian and Polish veto is expected to be dealt with during the summit this Thursday and Friday. European leaders will also discuss the response to the pandemic, relations with Turkey or the United States, and Brexit.
