Today, the European Commission announced a decision regarding Hungary under the EU budget’s conditionality regime. It found that recent legislative amendments notified by Hungary on December 2, 2024, do not adequately address concerns about conflicts of interest in the boards of “public interest trusts.”
In December 2022, the Council adopted measures to protect the Union budget from breaches of the rule of law in Hungary, particularly concerning public procurement, prosecutorial actions, conflicts of interest, and corruption. These measures included suspending 55% of budgetary commitments for three Cohesion Policy programmes and prohibiting the Commission from making new commitments with public interest trusts.
Because Hungary’s recent amendments did not resolve the outstanding issues, the Commission has decided to keep the measures in place. Hungary can submit new remedies at any time to seek adjustments to these measures. Additionally, no disbursement from the Hungarian Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) will occur until Hungary addresses all concerns regarding the rule of law under the conditionality regime.
