Hungary hopes EU funds start flowing at end-2022, early next year

BUDAPEST, Oct 13 (Reuters) – Hungary will implement all the commitments it made to the EU in a bid to unlock funds, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff said on Thursday, adding that if there is an agreement funds could start coming at the end of 2022 or early next year.

Gergely Gulyas told a briefing that talks with the European Commission could be completed within about a month.

The prospect that EU funds could soon be frozen in a dispute over policies the bloc says fall short of democratic norms has weighed on the forint currency for weeks, along with a widening trade deficit due to Hungary’s large energy imports. The forint slid to fresh record lows versus the euro earlier on Thursday.

European Union countries on Wednesday approved an extension of the deadline for deciding on financial sanctions against Hungary by two months until mid-December. There was no immediate response from Brussels to Thursday’s comments by Gulyas.

Orban’s government made a raft of commitments to Brussels to stave off a suspension of billions of euros of EU money over breaches of democratic checks and balances including weak anti-corruption safeguards.

Parliament has passed anti-graft laws which now have to be implemented and institutions set up, Gulyas said.

“What we would like and what looks like a realistic scenario is that an agreement can be signed before the end of the year, both about the operative programmes and the recovery funds, and in this case, EU funds can start arriving at the end of the year or early next year,” Gulyas said.

Facing surging energy costs and inflation, a record weak forint and a slowing economy, Orban, long at odds with the EU, now looks ready to create institutions that would cut corruption risks in Hungary.

(Reporting by Krisztina ThanEditing by Peter Graff)