Distribution of EU positions: the worst has been avoided, but that is all

HUNGARY - In Brief 04 Jul 2019 by Istvan Racz

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Looking at the results of the recent days' horse-trading around leading EU positions, one might easily have the impression that, from the Hungarian government's perspective , the worst of the potential outcomes has been avoided but the whole process was no great success at all.Of course, the starting point is that for Hungary, whose government is in a somewhat awkward situation within and vis-a-vis the EU, exactly who will be what in the EU in the forthcoming years should be highly important, especially in financial terms. That the issue about the agricultural and development grants provided by the EU (lightly called as EU transfers) is no joke anymore is signalled by the fact that the EU Commission's own statistical log which shows the cumulative payments by the EU to Hungary under the 2014-2020 budget was rolled back from EUR 8.55bn to EUR 8.09bn from end-May to end-June, i.e. by EUR458m within a single month. Although no official explanation has been given on either side, the latter number resembles the potential amount that the EU has been thought as potentially claiming back from the government as a penalty, in view of the irregular use of its development grants. But even more importantly, political decision on the 2021-2027 EU budget is due in the next six months, including deliberation on the EU transfers available to member countries in the next seven years. Naturally, key EU leaders will have a crucial role in those budget decisions.So in this regard, the results are at best mixed for PM Orbán. On the positive side, he managed to get rid of Manfred Weber, the election-winning European People's Party's original candidate for president of the EU Commission, who ...