Slovak Finance Minister Igor Matovič may support Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in his dispute over the release of EU funds for Hungary with the European Commission, according to the finance ministry’s latest position ahead of the Council meeting.
The Commission recently recommended freezing €7.5 billion in EU funds under the rule of law conditionality mechanism – focusing on programmes that are heavy on public procurement and therefore most vulnerable to corruption, which makes up for around one-third of the EU funds Hungary is supposed to get.
The decision still has to be approved by the member state’s finance ministers who will have to decide by a qualified majority before 19 December.
According to the position provided to the National Council’s Committee for European Affairs by the Finance Ministry, it is not clear whether Slovakia will support the Commission’s decision as the document sounded very “pro-Orban”.
“Slovakia has an interest in unblocking the funds for Hungary,” the position writes, Denník N reported. “It (Hungary) is our neighbour with whom we have good cooperation and many cross-border links and contacts,” it adds.
After National Council member Vladimíra Marcinková (SaS) complained to Prime Minister Eduard Heger (OĽaNO), the document was replaced by a more neutral one. However, as Marcinková said, not even new material clearly determines whether Matovič will support Orban or not.
According to Foreign Minister Rastislav Káčer, it is likely that the sanctions against Hungary will not be decided by the EU’s finance ministers, but only by the prime ministers sitting in the European Council.
Matovič’s opinion on Orbán has changed a lot in recent years.
In 2010, when he first got into the National Council, he called Orbán “our enemy” but ten years later, everything changed. It was Orbán and his foreign minister Péter Szijjártó who helped Matovič in the spring of 2021 to find the Russian Sputnik V vaccines, through which the chairman of OĽaNO and the then prime minister promised to accelerate vaccination to end the pandemic.
(Michal Hudec | EURACTIV.sk)
Source: euractiv.com
