EU deal's ambiguous conditions could embolden nationalist leaders of Hungary, Poland

European Union (EU) agreed to dilute wordings of conditionality of agreement in Brussels which could embolden nationalist leers of Hungary and Poland. EU leers decided to set mechanism that could have forced Warsaw and Budapest to avoid implementing policies, which EU deem undemocratic, in order to receive money from coronavirus recovery fund.

EU agreed to a ‘historic’ 750 billion euros coronavirus recovery fund on July 21 after a marathon four-day and four-night summit which witnessed fierce opposition and threats of a walkout. Anuncing budget for 2021-2027, EU Council said that 750 billion euros have been allocated to Next Generation EU (NGEU), of which 390 billion euros will be provided as grants and 360 billion euros as loans.

Poland’s Law and Justice party (PiS) is w likely to move ahe with its policies aimed at controlling media and courts without fears of sanctions from Brussels. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hailed agreement as a victory for Warsaw and told reporters that Poland cant be deprived of a single euro.

“We fought it out!” wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Facebook, projecting agreement as a victory for Budapest.

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'Historic step'

In EU’s seven-year budget, 1074.3 billion euros have been allocated under Multiannual financial framework (MFF). EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took to Twitter to anunce “historic step” but cautioned that y still require support of European Parliament. 

European Council said in a statement that exceptional nature of ecomic and social situation due to COVID-19 crisis requires exceptional measures to support ecomic recovery of Member States. It kwledged that member countries are slowly exiting acute health crisis but pandemic has posed a challenge of historic proportions.

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(Im: Facebook / @orbanviktor)