The hatchet is not completely buried between the European Union and Hungary.
Its president, Viktor Orban, had blackmailed until December, threatening with his veto the European recovery plan to 750 billion euros if the Europeans maintained requirements related to respect for the rule of law in return.
A compromise had finally been found, under the leadership of Angela Merkel.
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But the European Commission has not said its last word.
According to an internal document revealed by Reuters, she calls for a reform of the Hungarian public procurement system, which would give rise to
"systemic irregularities".
In other words, to favoritism or corruption.
"Competition in public procurement is insufficient in practice,"
according to the document.
"No request"
Hungary is at the top of the drifts noted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) in the use of European funds, with a rate of
"irregularities"
of 4%, against 0.36% on average in the country. 'EU.
In 2016, some 280 million euros in subsidies for the construction of the Budapest metro were suspected of having been the subject of embezzlement.
Hungary should benefit from 6.3 billion euros in aid as part of the European recovery plan.
As for all Member States, the Commission is calling for the establishment of guarantees on the use of this windfall.
“Fake news”,
reacted a spokesman for the Hungarian government, according to whom
“no request, official or informal”
for reform has been received from Brussels.
The battle is not about to end.
The Member States must in turn ratify the mechanism of the recovery plan.
If Budapest gets in the way, the whole architecture of this long-awaited device could again be threatened.
