Magyar Sends Letter to Von der Leyen Outlining EU Fund Negotiation Red Lines

On May 13, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced he would send a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlining Budapest's 'red lines' in the ongoing negotiations over the €17B in frozen EU funds. Magyar stated that Hungary cannot phase out windfall taxes on energy companies and banks — one of the conditions Brussels has linked to fund release — and asked for flexibility on the sequencing of reform milestones. Finance Minister András Kármán confirmed that the government plans to submit Hungary's revised national development programme to the European Commission before end of May, ahead of the August 31 deadline for the €10B Recovery and Resilience Facility portion. An EC delegation was scheduled to arrive in Budapest the following week for a five-day intensive round of negotiations. The letter-to-von-der-Leyen approach was seen as an attempt to establish a political-level dialogue above the technical track, signalling Magyar's intent to move fast on unlocking the funds ahead of the mid-year parliamentary review.