Bernadett Petri has been serving as the Ministerial Commissioner for Directly Managed EU Funds of Hungary since January 2024. She holds a law degree from Péter Pázmány Catholic University, and spent years working in the European Commission and the European Parliament before taking on her current role. We met her at the JARED kick-off conference, where she kindly gave us an exclusive interview.
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We have the Ministerial Commissioner for Directly Managed EU Funds with us here. Can you explain the distinction between directly managed EU funds and cohesion funds, or generally managed EU funds?
Sure, and with pleasure, because I used to start all the introductions with this explanation. So if you just look at the EU budget, you can see that there are two separate parts in the budget. One is the so-called cohesion policy, and the other part is all the EU priorities, which are the directly managed EU programmes. That includes programmes such as the Creative Europe, Single Market Programme, Horizon Europe, EU4health, space programme, and the European Defence Fund. So one can see that it is really diverse. And the main distinction between the cohesion policy and the directly managed programmes is that cohesion policy money is going through the member states. The member states are deciding how to spread the money within the country.
And by member states, do you mean the governments, the executive branch?
Yes, indeed, the government of the member states. At the same time, in the case of the EU programmes, there is a direct link between the EU institutions and the different actors operating within the member states. So the government has nothing to do with it. It is the EU institution that is deciding on the project and it’s the EU institution that is spreading the money to the other actors.
What is the role of a commissioner in this process if it’s not connected to the Hungarian government?
Well, this is a very good question because you might know that when a person becomes a commissioner, then he or she cannot act as a representative of the country anymore.
I didn’t know that.
This is also why the commissioners used to refer to their old home country as ‘the country I know the best’. That is because they are not allowed to say ‘my home country’, because as soon as they become a commissioner, they have to represent the European interest instead of the interest of their home state. However, in practice, obviously, nationality comes into play because we see that in reality, commissioners are able to bring change, bring a positive impact for their countries. How? Obviously, not openly. So they cannot say ‘I want to give more money to the actors operating in my home country’. However, they can, for instance, shape the policy in a way that it represents more of the interests of the states they are coming from.
This is more of a technical question. How does funding work? Does the European Commission actually transfer money to Hungarian companies who are taking part in a project? And how much money do you estimate this has brought into Hungary as a whole?
Between 2021 and 2023, it was more than €250 million per year on average—huge, huge, huge. But there is no national threshold. So there’s no threshold for any member state, meaning that all the actors together are competing against each other. So for a project to be really competitive in the field, which is direct funding in this case, you have to show a level of competitiveness. And this is why it is so hard for the CE region, because very often the calls are dedicated to big countries, big role players, big businesses. I’ll give you an example. Startups in Hungary usually have two, three members, two or three employees together. In the case of Germany, at least eight. And for instance, for most of the calls, the threshold is six, so we cannot even compete in Hungary because of this structure.
‘This is why it is so hard for the CE region, because very often the calls are dedicated to big countries, big role players, big businesses’
So, we are here at the JARED conference. In your speech, you referred to the JARED programme as a flagship programme of the the Hungarian Development Promotion Office (MFOI). Can you elaborate on that, on why you made that assessment?
Sure. First of all, health care, where this project takes place, is very special. In the case of the EU4Health programme, this is, I would say, the first time that a Hungarian actor, the National Korányi Institute of Pulmonology, is taking a leadership role. It is leading the consortium, which is a big thing. And secondly, this was huge because there are 14 participating countries and 38 partners in the project. And thirdly, because it is also bringing in quite a lot of money. In forints, it is bringing 270 million, so it is more or less €650,000 for this couple of years. This is just the money that Korányi is getting, because the entire project is even bigger. And also because we can really make an impact.
And was it a strategic choice to make this project about respiratory health a flagship project because of the COVID pandemic? Or was it more of an opportunistic choice, something big that was just happened upon and decided to be made into a major project?
I think that policy-wise, it was a conscious decision. So far, as for the EU health priorities, the EU was very much concentrating on cancer, because the previous Commissioner, Stella Kyriakides from Cyprus, was a cancer survivor. And thus, for her, it was a really personal thing. So it was really all about cancer.
And with the new Commissioner and with the new von der Leyen Commission, we see this priority slightly shifting towards all other diseases and also respiratory infections. Mainly because the new Commission seems to concentrate on cardiovascular diseases. A lot of respiratory and other diseases can lead to cardiovascular problems. And this is also why we think that policy-wise this is a flagship issue because there’s not enough EU legislation in this field. Why? Mainly because, as you might know, the EU competencies in the field of health are limited. And therefore it is through projects, such as the JARED, that the policy change can really take place.
Finally, do you have any insight on the issue of the frozen EU cohesion funds and COVID recovery funds? Do you have any insight on if it could be released and how much money is being withheld still?
This question always pops up, it is very natural. I used to emphasize on this issue that, first of all, we speak about this €1 billion that seems to be lost because of the deadlines set in the Council decision of 2022. However, I like to emphasize that the money is not lost. This is a deadline that has been passed that was included in the Council decision, but the EU—the Council or the Commission—can any time decide that they want to change this deadline. So it’s not set in stone, there is no treaty background, it is not something that cannot be changed.
And secondly, about the future of negotiations. The EU will now present the new multiannual financial framework in the spring. And this is a consensual project. So all member states have to accept the Commission’s proposal. And therefore, obviously, for negotiating, Hungary can be there any time. This is a great ground for us to change things and, I would say, create a level playing field for us in the negotiations. So I really believe that with the new Commission, the negotiations will restart.
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