Hungary submits anti-graft bill to unlock EU funds

BUDAPEST: Hungary's government on Tuesday submitted a broad anti-corruption draft law as it moves to carry out reforms aimed at securing access to billions of euros in European Union funds that have been withheld.

The EU said late last month it would release more than 16 billion euros, equivalent to $19 billion, for Hungary if Budapest remained on course with a major reform drive. The money had been frozen over rule-of-law concerns during the rule of nationalist former prime minister Viktor Orban.

Getting the funds was a key campaign promise of Prime Minister Peter Magyar, a pro-EU conservative who removed Orban from office after 16 years in the April elections. The largest share of the blocked money, a little over 10 billion euros, is from the EU's Covid recovery fund, and Hungary had until the end of August to present a new plan to obtain it.

Magyar described the proposed legislation as historic in a Facebook video.

"Hungarian people and companies can finally gain access to... EU funds that are rightfully theirs, and to achieve this we need do nothing more than what the people of Hungary also expect from us: to eradicate Orban-style corruption," he said.