Hungary's next PM says frozen EU funds will be paid out soon

Hungary's Prime Minister-elect Péter Magyar has met EU leaders in Brussels, for the first time since his Tisza party won a landslide election on 12 April, sweeping away 16 years of rule by Viktor Orbán.

After talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which he called "extremely constructive and successful", Magyar said that "in one sentence, EU resources will soon arrive in Hungary".

Magyar has vowed to unlock billions of euros of EU funds for Hungary that have been frozen because of democratic backsliding and corruption allegations under Orbán's Fidesz-led government.

Orbán, who ran a largely anti-EU election campaign, had accused his rival of being a puppet of Brussels.

After his talks, Magyar sought to assure Hungarians that the EU did not support conditions that would be contrary to their country's interests. The unblocked billions would help revive Hungary's ailing economy, he added. Hungary's economy has shown minimal growth for the past three years..

The conditions were simple, said party colleague Márton Hajdu: there should be no corruption, and the government should not interfere with the functioning of the courts. However, Magyar is in a hurry and his new government will have its work cut out to meet those conditions in a short space of time.

Von der Leyen said she had had a "very good exchange" with Hungary's next prime minister, adding that the EU's executive Commission would "support your work to address these issues and realign with shared European values".

Péter Magyar, 45, is not due to be sworn in until 9 May, but he has promised to hit the ground running. Two days after his election victory he was already on the phone to von der Leyen to press her on the release of EU funds.

He said on Wednesday that he would return to Brussels on 25 May to sign a political agreement.

Magyar also met European Council President António Costa, who represents the EU's 27 member states. The Tisza leader wrote on social media afterwards that "Hungary was, is and will be in Europe".

His most urgent priority is to unlock €10.4bn (£9bn) of the EU's Covid-19 recovery fund before it expires at the end of August, if Budapest is unable to meet a raft of "super-milestones". Those milestones involve anti-corruption and rule-of-law reforms set as part of Hungary's post-Covid recovery plan in 2022.

Magyar also has an eye on a further €6.3bn in cohesion funds that were blocked over Orbán-era rule-of-law issues that the incoming government has promised to reverse.

On top of that he could have access to €16.1bn in cheap EU defence loans and will aim to put an end to a €1m daily fine that Budapest has had to pay out for breaching EU migration rules.

Magyar is certainly in a good position to steer reforms through the Hungarian parliament, having secured a "super-majority" of two-thirds of MPs that enables the governing party to change the constitution.

His Tisza party, which was only formed just over two years ago, won 141 seats in the 199-seat National Assembly earlier this month.

There is also considerable goodwill from other EU leaders towards the incoming government.

Orbán's veto on a €90bn loan to Ukraine was lifted last week at an informal EU summit that the outgoing prime minister did not attend. And Magyar has sought to reset turbulent relations with Kyiv by offering to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky early in June, in the Hungarian-majority town of Berehove in south-western Ukraine.