Hungary loses right to EU aid worth more than €1 billion
Brussels – Hungary has lost its entitlement to significant EU aid due to rule of law breaches, as reforms were due by the end of 2025. According to the European Commission, the forfeited funds amount to more than 1 billion euro.
In order to release the funds, Hungary would have had to implement sufficient reforms by the end of 2025, including changing laws to prevent conflicts of interest and combat corruption.
The funds, earmarked from programmes to support structurally weak areas and originally planned for 2023, were frozen after an analysis by the European Commission concluded that Hungary had disregarded certain EU standards and fundamental values.
Further losses loom
If Hungary continues to fail to implement sufficient reforms, it faces losing further funding amounting to billions of euros in the future.
EU legislation called the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation came into force in 2021, linking the bloc’s financial interests and the rule of law and giving the EU additional financial and budgetary tools to police the rule of law in member states.
EU states agreed to freeze some 6.3 billion euro in funds earmarked for Hungary from the bloc’s multiannual budget for 2021-27 at the end of 2022 through the mechanism. A first tranche, also amounting to just over 1 billion euro, already expired at the end of 2024 because Budapest failed to implement the necessary reforms.
Further billions of euros for the country are also blocked in part by other regulations. According to the Commission, a total of around 17 billion euro was frozen most recently. Hungary’s economic output in 2024 was around 205 billion euro. (January 1)
