European Parliament has rejected a bid by a group of MEPs to remove a ban on certain Hungarian universities accessing Erasmus+ funds that was imposed due to rule of law concerns over their management structure.
In a vote on Tuesday, 16/01/2024 on the implementation of the student mobility programme, Slovenian MEP Milan Zver, a member of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), sought to introduce an amendment to work with the European Commission on lifting the ban.
In December, the European Commission found that changes made last May to Hungary’s judicial system were sufficient to allow it to unlock €10.2 billion in frozen cohesion funds. A further €21 billion remains blocked, some of it under the EU’s conditionality mechanism, introduced in 2021 to try to curb rule of law breaches among member states.
The Commission’s announcement came just before EU leaders met to discuss the mid-term review of the EU’s long-term budget for 2021-2017. That budget was vetoed by Orbán, who disagreed with a €50 billion aid package for Ukraine.
For many in the European Parliament, this is an attempt by Orbán to blackmail the EU as leverage. In a resolution adopted today with 345 votes for and 104 against , MEPs condemned “systematic discriminatory practices against academia, journalists, political parties and civil society when allocating funds” in Hungary.