The EU should not be too hasty in releasing frozen funds for Hungary after last week's vote, European lawmakers said on April 14, warning it should wait for prime minister-elect Peter Magyar to implement concrete reforms.
Magyar has vowed to unlock the billions of euros involved, and Brussels has made overtures in that sense as both sides pursue a quick reset in relations after the fraught tenure of outgoing nationalist leader Viktor Orban.
"An immediate release of funding is not possible. We're not giving a blank check," said Daniel Freund, a European lawmaker with the Greens group.
"We all want this government to be successful. We want EU money to go to citizens, including Hungarian citizens, but we want this under the full respect of the rule of law of the underlying legislation," he said.
The EU has frozen around 18 billion euros in funds earmarked for Budapest because of democratic backsliding, tackling graft and the treatment of LGBTQ issues under Orban's rule.
The money could help Magyar revive Hungary's flagging economy and generate goodwill as Brussels seeks to push ahead with files previously blocked by Budapest, such as a new round of Russian sanctions and funding for Ukraine.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said this week that Brussels would "work intensively" with the new government to that end "because the Hungarian people deserve it."
"There is swift work to be done to restore, realign, and reform," she wrote on social media after a call with Magyar on April 14.
Lawmaker Flavio Tosi of the European Parliament's center-right EPP group—to which Magyar belongs—said, "The unfreezing will certainly happen, as conditions have now changed drastically."
"The timing and the details will be worked out between the new Hungarian government and the European Commission," he added.
But lawmakers from several parliament groups have called for caution.
"The European Commission shouldn't rush," said Carolina Morace of the Left, noting that Magyar, a former government insider who hails from the same ideological camp as Orban, has yet to take office.
Moritz Korner of the centrist Renew group said it would be a mistake to repeat the fast release that followed the election of pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Poland in 2023.
That might give the impression that the freezing had little to do with "the rule of law" and was more about punishing an antagonizing government, he said.
Brussels should act in a "constructive and encouraging" manner but proceed only once the "first measures" are taken, added Sandro Gozi, of the same centrist group.
Alessandro Zan of the center-left S&D group said, "We need to consider the release of EU funds on the basis of objective and measurable criteria, as the process is far from straightforward due to Orban's legacy."
While in power, Orban, a self-described "thorn" in the European Union's side who maintained close ties to Moscow, kept the Constitutional Court, Public Prosecutor's Office, and Court of Audit on a tight leash and appointed allies to run them.
"Let's give the prime minister-elect time to settle and to come forward with concrete proposals, and then we'll be able to discuss how we will be taking it further," commission spokeswoman Paula Pinho told a press conference on April 14.
