IT’S NOT EASY LOVING: Ursula von der Leyen and Péter Magyar meet today for high-stakes talks aimed at unlocking frozen EU funds for Budapest after years of stalemate. As Rapporteur reported, officials say negotiations are moving, but caution Hungary is unlikely to walk away with the full €10 billion it wants.
You’re reading Rapporteur on Friday 29 May. This is Nicoletta Ionta in Brussels.
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Need-to-knows:
🟢 Capitals demand oversight after aid used for trade goals🟢 Iceland approves referendum on EU accession talks🟢 Magyar vows Hungary’s EU stance will not change
From the capital
It always comes back to the same fault line in EU budget talks: flexibility versus control. The Commission wants room to manoeuvre, national governments want oversight.
This time, the fight centres on the executive’s spending powers after hundreds of millions of euros in development funds were steered towards support for trade deals with Mercosur and India.
Diplomats say capitals are now pushing for more influence over how foreign aid is deployed in the next long-term budget, amid growing unease over the Commission’s use of the money in recent years.
Last week, EU ambassadors debated the governance of the future ‘Global Europe’ external action fund and reflected on shortcomings in the current aid structures, designed to support partner countries on issues ranging from education to economic growth.
At stake is a €9.54 billion reserve of unallocated funds within the EU’s 2021-2027 budget that the Commission can mobilise in response to “unforeseen” events, including natural disasters, armed conflict and migration crises.
Although the reserve was initially conceived as an emergency response mechanism, the EU executive has leeway to use the money for “new Union led or international initiatives or priorities” – a provision it has repeatedly relied on in recent years.
According to documents reviewed by my colleagues Maria Simon Arboleas, Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro and me, the Commission directed part of the reserve towards countries involved in its most significant trade negotiations, including India and Mercosur, using the funds to smooth the path for the agreements, notably by offsetting the impact of European demands.
A Commission spokesperson told Euractiv that the reserve was created to allow the EU to respond rapidly to “geopolitical developments, emerging challenges and new priorities,” adding that the spending complied with the rules.
Alexei Jones, head of development policy at the European Centre for Development Policy Management, told me that the crisis cushion was “increasingly functioning as a geopolitical reserve” for the Commission, helping explain why capitals are pressing for tighter control.
Read our full story.
Continuity will prevail, Magyar tells diplomats
Péter Magyar, Hungary’s new prime minister, met the country’s EU diplomats at its Brussels representation on Thursday during a visit that also includes talks with NATO chief Mark Rutte and Ursula von der Leyen.
With Magyar taking over after 16 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule, many diplomats have never served under another government. According to two officials who spoke to my colleague Magnus Lund Nielsen, Magyar sought to calm nerves in the room. Staff were told no sweeping overhaul of the representation was planned.
Although he campaigned on a promise to break with the Orbán era, Magyar told diplomatic staff that Hungary’s position would remain largely unchanged on several key issues, including competitiveness, migration and the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
The latter is expected to feature in his talks with von der Leyen today. Ahead of the meeting, the Commission has tried to temper expectations in Budapest over the prospect of recovering billions of euros of EU funds frozen during the Orbán years.
Romania as Plan B?
Moldovan President Maia Sandu is increasingly raising reunification with Romania as a potential fallback route into the EU if Moldova’s accession process stalls, my colleague Matei Rosca reports.
Asked last week whether reunification could become an alternative path into the bloc, Sandu said Chisinau would “consider other options” if its membership bid stalled.
It was not the first time this year that Sandu has publicly raised the possibility of joining Romania. Euractiv previously reported that Moldova is expected to open its first negotiating cluster on 16 June. Read the full story.
Ukraine’s safe-country exemption
The Commission has requested approval from EU capitals to activate an exemption that would prevent Ukraine from being automatically designated as “safe” under the bloc’s new list of safe countries, according to a document seen by Rapporteur.
The designation can enable fast-tracked asylum procedures and make it easier to reject claims. While candidate countries are generally presumed safe, exceptions are made for states at war.
The request comes as governments debate the future of temporary protection for millions of Ukrainians living in the EU. Migration ministers are set to discuss the issue next week. Rapporteur first reported in March that capitals were already exploring another extension of the scheme, which grants Ukrainians residence and work rights across the bloc and could now stretch into a sixth year.
Last year, EU capitals adopted recommendations on how to gradually phase out the programme, but progress towards a longer-term status for refugees has remained slow and uneven.
Fitto rejects ‘cash machine’ jibe
“There is no ‘cash machine’,” Raffaele Fitto, the EU’s cohesion commissioner, snapped back on Thursday after Kata Tüttő, president of the Committee of the Regions, accused him of treating cohesion funds as an “emergency cash machine” to tackle Europe’s energy crisis.
The clash erupted after Fitto encouraged capitals to make “maximum use” of cohesion money, originally designed to help poorer regions develop, to cushion the impact of high energy prices in a letter. Tüttő warned the move risked sacrificing long-term investment for short-term firefighting.
“The energy crisis is real. The proposed solution is not,” she said.
Fitto rejected the criticism, arguing that the Commission was not forcing national governments to spend the money. “Member States and Regions decide,” he said, describing the proposal as a flexibility measure that gives countries room to respond to local needs.
Here are 3 new stories from Euractiv:
The capitals
PARIS 🇫🇷
Centrist former PM Édouard Philippe said on Thursday that “no non-final court ruling” would stop him from running in France’s next presidential election, despite an ongoing investigation into alleged favouritism, misuse of public funds and conflicts of interest linked to his time as mayor of Le Havre. Philippe said he was “innocent,” had “not broken the law” and would cooperate fully with investigators.– Clara Vassent
SOFIA 🇧🇬
The European Commission released an initial €370 million in recovery funds for Bulgaria after parliament backed, at first reading, reforms to the anti-corruption commission and prosecutor-general’s office. Following talks with von der Leyen in Brussels on Thursday, PM Rumen Radev acknowledged that years of political instability had slowed progress, but pledged to meet all remaining milestones before an August 2026 deadline to unlock a further €3 billion.– Konstantin Karadjov
BUCHAREST 🇷🇴
A Russian drone struck an apartment building in the Romanian city of Galați overnight, injuring two people and marking the first time a drone incursion has hit a residential building in the country since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Romanian authorities scrambled F-16s after the drone entered national airspace during a wider wave of Russian strikes near the border.– Christina Zhao
WARSAW 🇵🇱
Poland on Thursday signed its first contracts under the EU’s SAFE defence financing scheme, awarding cybersecurity deals worth PLN 3 billion (€700 million) to domestic firms. The contracts cover post-quantum encryption, cryptographic systems and secure data exchange. Donald Tusk said agreements worth PLN 100 billion (€23 billion) would be signed by the end of the week. Poland is the largest beneficiary of the bloc’s €150 billion SAFE programme.– Charles Szumski
MADRID 🇪🇸
Aitor Esteban, leader of the Basque National Party and a key ally of Pedro Sánchez, on Thursday called for snap elections as corruption scandals continue to dog the ruling Socialists. Rejecting a no-confidence motion proposed by the far-right Vox party, Esteban said the legislative term had effectively run its course and questioned whether the prime minister’s refusal to dissolve parliament served the public interest.– Inés Fernández-Pontes
TIRANA 🇦🇱
High-level corruption remains a key concern in Albania’s EU accession process, according to the bloc’s common position on closing benchmarks under Cluster 1. While Brussels acknowledged progress in investigating senior officials, it said anti-corruption prosecutors, courts and oversight bodies must be able to operate independently. The EU also urged Albania to align parliamentary immunity rules with Venice Commission standards and implement outstanding electoral reform recommendations.– Bronwyn Jones
REYKJAVIK 🇮🇸
Icelanders will vote on 29 August on whether to restart EU accession talks after parliament approved the referendum date on Thursday. Lawmakers backed the resolution by 34 votes to eight, with 14 abstentions. A yes vote would restart EU accession negotiations, which Iceland halted in 2013 and have remained dormant ever since.– Nicoletta Ionta
ATHENS 🇬🇷
Former Ukrainian PM Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Greece deserves an apology from Russia, “absolutely not” from Kyiv, after a Ukrainian sea drone carrying explosives was found near a Greek island. Speaking to Euractiv, he argued that all European countries faced security threats from the war. Athens is expected to lodge a formal protest with Kyiv soon.– Sarantis Michalopoulos
Contributors: Magnus Lund Nielsen, Maria Simon Arboleas, Sofia Sanchez Manzanaro, Victoria Becker, Matei Rosca
Editors: Christina Zhao, Sofia Mandilara, Charles Szumski
Source:
www.euractiv.com
