BUDAPEST -- The Hungarian government, seeking to prevent a blocking of European Union funds over corruption concerns, said it is ready to send new laws to parliament in the coming days to overcome Brussels’ objections.
The remarks on September 17 come just days ahead of an expected announcement by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, that the bloc is ready to suspend the transfer of some EU funds to Hungary over the corruption concerns.
It also comes after the European Parliament on September 15 approved a resolution saying Hungary was no longer a "full democracy."
The European Parliament voted 433-to-123 with 28 abstentions to approve the report, which said Hungary had become “a hybrid regime of electoral autocracy” under the leadership of [Prime Minister Viktor] Orban's nationalist government, and that its undermining of the bloc’s democratic values had taken the country out of the community of democracies.
Fidesz, Orban's ruling party, blasted the European Parliament for the resolution, calling it "unforgivable" that "the European Parliament is attacking Hungary again."
On September 17, Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said Budapest would establish an anti-corruption department and a working group with nongovernmental organizations to oversee spending of the EU funds based on commission requirements.
"The government has either accepted the requests of the European Commission, or in the areas where we could not accept them, we have managed to reach a compromise that is satisfactory to both parties," Gulyas told reporters.
"At today's meeting, the government discussed these commitments and has approved them," he said, adding that the new laws are to take effect in November. "Instead of mutual distrust, the constructive series of negotiations with the commission over the past two months can be seen as a step toward mutual trust."
Orban, who was reelected for a fourth consecutive term in April, has clashed often with the bloc over issues such as judicial independence, public procurement, LGBT rights, and media, academic, and religious freedoms.
Since sweeping to power on his nationalist agenda in 2010, Orban, who characterizes the country as an "illiberal democracy," has rewritten the constitution and key aspects of electoral laws and consolidated allies' control of nearly every major media outlet in the country.
The European Parliament report actually blamed the European Union's other 26 members for being "inactive" to Orban's democratic abuses during his rule, saying part of the problem was "the inability of the [European] Council to make meaningful progress to counter democratic backsliding."