EU Sum­mit: Orbán: Hun­gary, Poland ‘Pro­tect­ed Nation­al Pride’

At the Euro­pean Union sum­mit on the bloc’s 2021 – 2027 bud­get and its pan­dem­ic recov­ery pack­age, Hun­gary and Poland have suc­ceed­ed in ensur­ing sub­stan­tial funds and in pro­tect­ing their nation­al pride, Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán said.

Coun­ter­part Mateusz Moraw­iec­ki at the Pol­ish embassy in Brus­sels, Orbán said attempts to link EU fund­ing to the rule of law had been “suc­cess­ful­ly thwarted”.

Hun­gary and Poland have shown “that it is unac­cept­able from nations that inher­it­ed the rule of law to crit­i­cise and lec­ture free­dom-fight­er nations that have gone through very hard times and done so much against com­mu­nist regimes,” Orbán highlighted.

Three days of intense inter­gov­ern­men­tal nego­ti­a­tions at the EU Sum­mit have failed to yield an agree­ment on the Euro­pean Commission’s mas­sive coro­n­avirus recov­ery pack­age. Lead­ers of the 27 mem­ber states have been try­ing to agree on the finan­cial archi­tec­ture and the con­di­tion­al­i­ty of the next long-term EU bud­get and an addi­tion­al €750 bil­lion recov­ery fund. […]Con­tin­ue reading

“I wish all Hun­gar­i­ans many suc­cess­ful morn­ings such as this one,” he added.Related arti­cleEU Sum­mit: Overnight Talks Yield No Agreement

Orbán also not­ed the sub­stan­tial fund­ing allo­cat­ed to the bloc’s enlarge­ment and the inte­gra­tion of West­ern Balkan states. He said Ser­bia is key to func­tion­al Euro­pean secu­ri­ty, so the “EU needs Ser­bia more than Ser­bia needs the EU”.

Moraw­iec­ki said that if the EU fails to inte­grate the region, Rus­sia, Turkey and Chi­na would move into the “pow­er vac­u­um” there.

Regard­ing the rule of law, Moraw­iec­ki said a “need to sep­a­rate polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic dimen­sions with­in the EU” had been made clear. He also com­plained that the “year-long, unfound­ed, polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed attacks” against Poland were “unac­cept­able”.

Refer­ring to “unre­solved issues”, Orbán said the trans­paren­cy of “EU-fund­ed, polit­i­cal­ly engaged NGOs which attack their own gov­ern­ments in an unac­cept­able man­ner” should be dis­cussed at a lat­er date.

Regard­ing EU sup­port for poor regions, Orbán said “Hun­gary believes in work as being key to suc­cess”, and that it was only through the hard work of Hun­gar­i­ans that EU fund­ing would bear fruit “for a very hap­py sev­en years ahead”.

The EU sum­mit, orig­i­nal­ly planned for Fri­day and Sat­ur­day, end­ed ear­ly on Tues­day after four days of nego­ti­a­tions. The Hun­gar­i­an web­site Ori­go said late on Mon­day that Hun­gary got 3 bil­lion euros more than planned, and Ger­man Chan­cel­lor Angela Merkel had promised to close the Arti­cle 7 pro­ce­dure against Hun­gary dur­ing the Ger­man EU presidency.

Fea­tured pho­to by Vivien Cher Benko/PM’s Press Office

Source: hun​gary​to​day​.hu