Where are the Member States’ development funds?

EU Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn yesterday presented the proposal to amend the EU’s seven-year budget to the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets. According to the Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament, the European Commission must first and foremost answer serious questions, in particular: where are the Member States’ unpaid recovery and development funds?

What sums have been paid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, from what source and how have they been used? How has the interest burden on the joint loan doubled while five countries have not yet received any money from the reconstruction fund, with barely 20% of the total amount having been disbursed? How is it possible that, in the third year of the cycle, only a few percent of cohesion funds are being paid out, while billions more would be spent on resettling illegal migrants in Europe, and Member States’ austerity measures would be accompanied by an increase in the salaries of the Brussels bureaucracy? The Fidesz delegation to the European Parliament believes that these questions must be clarified first. We find it inconceivable that additional burdens should be imposed on Hungarians while not a single penny of the reconstruction and development funds that we are legally entitled to from the EU has been paid out.

Speaking during the debate, Fidesz MEP Andor Deli stressed the need for the Commission to take stock of all the amounts and financial assistance that have been provided or are planned to be provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. According to MEP Andor Deli, it is important to clarify the reasons for the delays in the payment of funds to Member States, namely to what extent the economic situation caused by the war and the ever-increasing war payments are responsible for the delay.