Minister of Finance Mihály Varga of Hungary announced on his Facebook page that around 300 billion HUF (€779.5 million) had been transferred to Hungary, and the amount is now included in the government budget. The money in question comes from the Union’s REPowerEU programme, set to help Member States transition to green energy and reduce their dependence on Russian energy supplies.
Minister Varga continued under his Facebook post, writing: ‘Hungary’s modified recovery and resilience plan was accepted by the EU ministers of finance on 8 December, thus all obstacles have been cleared from transferring the funds due to our homeland.’
Please note that this sum is not part of the €10.2 billion of cohesion funds approved to our country by the European Commission earlier this month.
Minister Without Portfolio for Regional Development and the Use of EU Funds Tibor Navracsics also commented on the fortunate developments, while also anticipating more payments to come, saying:
‘The payments have started to arrive, the first part of the EU funds that are rightfully due to our country is at home at last! At the beginning of January, payments for the operational programmes will also start, so the first significant amount of €445 million will arrive soon!’
The total amount unconditionally accessible to Hungary through the REPowerEU scheme is €920 million, while additional funds are also available if certain conditions in the energy sector are met.
Additional EU funds, withheld from the COVID recovery and EU cohesion programmes, could also be disbursed if the government completes 27 so-called ‘super milestones’ in complying with the EU’s rule of law requirements. The Hungarian financial news site Portfolio.hu claims the total amount still due is €5.9 billion. However, the British paper Financial Times, back in May, wrote of a total of €36 billion in frozen EU funds due to Hungary, of which €10.2 billion have been approved for payment by the Commission—and that does not include the REPower EU funds either. That would put the remaining sum to €25.8 billion.
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