EU Council Suspends €7.5B in Hungarian Cohesion Funds

On November 22, 2022, the EU Council formally suspended €7.5 billion in Hungarian cohesion funds under the rule-of-law conditionality mechanism — the first time this instrument had been used against an EU member state. The European Commission had recommended the suspension in September 2022. Hungary had made some judicial reform commitments but was found to have implemented only superficial changes. Combined with €10.4B frozen from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), total frozen EU funds reached approximately €17 billion by year-end.