Fears over 2020 EU funding cuts
February 21st, 2019The leading online economic daily comments on the draft EU budget plans, and suspects that the EU will use carrots to lure Hungary into the Eurozone. A pro-government commentator thinks that the core EU states do not respect the sovereignty of other members at all.
In Portfolio Attila Weinhardt commenting on the 2020-2027 EU budget draft plans leaked in the German media, suspects that Hungary may be adversely impacted by the restructuring of EU funding. According to the German-French deal discussed, the Eurozone countries would get earmarked sums. In order to access more structural funding, Hungary will be compelled to meet the ERM-II regulations and the country’s admission to the Eurozone. Weinhardt interprets all this as the Eurozone countries efforts’ to redistribute as much of the EU funds among themselves as possible, and at the same time, to incentivize non-Eurozone member states to speed up their efforts to join the zone.
In Magyar Nemzet, Levente Sitkei, without explicitly mentioning the leaked budget draft, accuses EU core powers of using the European Union to further their own economic interests. Sitkei writes that Hungary respects the sovereignty of all EU member states, and never interferes with their own decisions, while other states continuously pressurize Hungary for the putative violation of democratic norms, and try to force the Euro on it.