Recovery and Resilience Facility: Hungary submits official recovery and resilience plan. [ Ссылка ] The Commission has received an official recovery and resilience plan from Hungary. This plan sets out the reforms and investment projects that Hungary plans to implement with the support of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
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The RRF is the key instrument at the heart of NextGenerationEU, the EU’s plan for emerging stronger from the COVID-19 pandemic. It will provide up to €672.5 billion to support investments and reforms (in 2018 prices). This breaks down into grants worth a total of €312.5 billion and €360 billion in loans. The RRF will play a crucial role in helping Europe emerge stronger from the crisis, and securing the green and digital transitions.
The presentation of the plan follows intensive dialogue between the Commission and the Hungarian national authorities over the past months.
Hungary’s recovery and resilience plan
Hungary has requested a total of €7.2 billion in grants under the RRF.
The Hungarian plan is structured around the key policy areas of green transition, healthcare, research, digital, cohesion and public administration. The plan includes measures in sustainable transport, energy transition and the circular economy. Projects in the plan cover the entire lifetime of the RRF until 2026. The plan proposes projects in five of the seven European flagship areas.
The Commission will assess the Hungarian plan within the next two months based on the eleven criteria set out in the Regulation and translate its content into legally binding acts. This assessment will notably include a review of whether the plan contributes to effectively addressing all or a significant subset of challenges identified in the relevant country-specific recommendations issued in the context of the European Semester. The Commission will also assess whether the plan dedicates at least 37% of expenditure to investments and reforms that support climate objectives, and 20% to the digital transition. Based on a proposal by the Commission, the Council will have as a rule four weeks to adopt the Commission proposal.
The Council’s approval of the plan would pave the way for the disbursement of a 13% pre-financing to Hungary. This is subject to the entry into force of the Own Resources Decision, which must first be approved by all Member States.
The Commission has now received a total of 15 recovery and resilience plans, from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, and Slovakia. It will continue to engage intensively with the remaining Member States to help them deliver high quality plans.
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Renew Europe MEPs wrote to Ursula von der Leyen to urge her not to approve the Hungarian government’s recovery plan until an effective anti-fraud system is put in place in Hungary.
The MEPs outlines how this could be done.
First, they demand that Viktor Orbán agrees to grant the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) access to the list of final beneficiaries of the Resilience and Recovery Facility Plan (RFF) money.
Second, they ask that persons and entities with a record of serious financial irregularities or conflicts of interest should be denied from receiving RRF funds.
Third, they urge that the laws obstructing investigative journalists and civil society organisations from accessing public information must be repealed or revised.
It is a priority for Renew Europe to ensure that the €7 billion recovery fund Hungary -will benefit all Hungarians and not a few politically-connected ones.
In the letter sent yesterday (27 June) by President Dacian Cioloș, Vice-President Katalin Cseh, Luis Garicano, Vice-President and coordinator on budgetary affairs and Valérie Hayer, coordinator on economic affairs, to the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the MEPs stated:
"Fraud in Viktor Orbán's Hungary is endemic — or to quote the Commission: it is 'systemic'. In 2020, your services found that Hungary's anti-corruption framework is inadequate and that "investigation and prosecution appears less effective in Hungary than in other member states" and "determined systematic action to prosecute high-level corruption is lacking."
They remind the Commission that an effective anti-fraud system is a criteria to access the recovery funds under the RRF regulation.
The letter concludes:
"Madame President, you have endeavoured to travel around Europe to physically deliver the Commission's seals of approval of the national recovery plans. You took pictures with every leader whose plan was rated positively by your services. When you go to Budapest, we want you to be able to shake Viktor Orbán's hand, knowing that his cronies are not rubbing theirs together with glee."
