ADVERTISEMENT

Viktor Orban Expects More Battles Over Rule of Law 

Viktor Orban Expects More Battles Over Rule of Law 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that he expects more battles over linking the disbursement of European Union funds to rule-of-law criteria even though he was able to block such attempts at the bloc’s summit this week.

“We didn’t win the war, we won an important battle,” Orban said in a state radio interview on Friday. Hungary and Poland are both under formal probes, putting billions of euros at risk if tough conditions are imposed.

EU leaders at a four-day summit in Brussels over the past week for the first time introduced language linking funding to upholding the rule-of-law, but its vague wording allowed both sides to claim victory.

Efforts to set such criteria for funding would amount to “political conditions,” Orban said, adding that its supporters were leaders “typically from pro-immigration countries who hate us, without exaggerating” because of anti-immigrant policies in Poland and Hungary.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.