During three days, the delegation looked into ongoing issues with the protection of the EU budget and the rule of law conditionality mechanism in Hungary. Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Petri SARVAMAA, (EPP, FI), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), and Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE) conclude the fact-finding mission by a Press conference. The transcription is the results of an automated process. Please check against delivery.

EP delegation

press conference

EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights (T)

Committee on Budgetary Control

EU - Hungary (T)

Budgetary control (T2)

HOHLMEIER, Monika (EPP, DE)

SARVAMAA, Petri (EPP, FI)

Hungary

Budapest

FREUND, Daniel (Greens/EFA, DE)

WOLTERS, Lara (S&D, NL)

recovery and resilience facility (T)

Press conference by Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Petri SARVAMAA, (EPP, FI), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL) and Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE) on the conclusions of the fact-finding mission

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, So thank you very much. And thank you very much for your presence here. We had till the last moment. A lot of very interesting meetings here in Budapest and the last one here in the EPLO. May I thank in the first place the European Parliament's civil servants very much for the support and for the help to the delegation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, First of all, let me recall the reasons why we are undertaking this fact finding mission to Budapest. The Budgetary Control Committee is responsible for the conditionality mechanism, for the protection of the financial interests of the Union and the sole committee being responsible...

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, One moment for the sole committee being responsible for the democratic scrutiny of the spending of EU funds. There were some people asking why Hungary? Hungary is the first country where the EU triggered the conditionality mechanism for the protection of the financial interests of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, As we all know, the triggering resulted in the decision of the Member States to suspend 55% of funds under three cohesion programmes for 2021 to 2027. The negotiations with the Commission on the implementation of the 17 remedial measures to unfreeze those funds are ongoing.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, In our responsibility as discharge authority, we also assess the ongoing process for the implementation of the 27 super milestones for Hungary to unblock payments under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Under the RRF, Hungary has not yet received any payment pending the implementation of the underlying milestones and targets.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We have spent three days of intense and very interesting meetings with different stakeholders responsible for the management, implementation and control of the EU funds. Representatives from the government audit and tax bodies, members of the opposition, local and regional authorities, businesses, civil society and journalists.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, The delegation of the CONT Committee and all counterparts share the same view. EU funds represent a very big opportunity for the development of Hungary for the prosperity of Hungarian citizens. However, our core concern is how the money can reach Hungarian citizens, businesses and regions in a transparent, in a fair and in an impartial way.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, How to ensure that all regions, citizens and businesses have equal access to EU funds without any discrimination and without any political bias? Let me be clear from the start, the European Parliament and the CONT Committee want funds to reach citizens and companies in Hungary. But in order for that to happen, adequate control systems and fair distribution procedures of EU funds must be ensured.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Upon concluding our mission, I can say our mission gave valuable on the spot information to the Parliament, the Commission, as well as the European Court of Auditors. First, we noticed several positive developments, such as the set up of the New Integrity Authority. We recognise the reforms, increasing cooperation between the National Tax and Customs Administration and the EU Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, the strengthening of the National Judiciary Council.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, For the parliament. The independence of the judiciary system is of major importance. This is why we will continue to closely monitor the progress of the implementation of the related reforms. But we have identified certain shortcomings. During our mission, our concerns on the effectiveness of the State Audit Office to adequately audit the planning, implementation and control of EU funds and the functioning of the national authorities related to it were confirmed.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Our questions to the State Audit Authority concerning misuse, manipulation of tenders, reliability of budget accounts, reporting of fraud cases to prosecution remained unanswered. Finding from the European Court of Auditors, OLAF and the European Commission, provided the CONT Committee they showed that there are persisting problems in the implementation of the EU funds.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, One example only: for the 2014 to the 2020 period, 29 audits were carried out, which imposed altogether an estimated €1.48 billion, approximately 560 billion forints of financial corrections. It was astonishing for us that the State Audit Office did not mention any of these weaknesses. As the recovery fund is concerned, the Hungarian State Audit Office offered no explanation on how they will follow and assess the use of these funds.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Second issue, free market economy. The CONT delegation also received information about issues related to public procurement. Civil society, the business community and local and regional authorities shared concerns about concentrations of public procurement awards in the hands of certain companies and persons close to the current government.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Proper implementation of public procurement and fair competition rules are key for lifting the block on cohesion funds as well as the RRF funds. One of the major concerns raised by the business community are the distorting measures of the government in the field of competition, taxation and EU's internal market rules.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Discriminatory measures such as arbitrary overnight change of laws, undue and unjustified measures under the pretext of state of emergency, including unfair special taxes or fees, as well as damaging and distorting price caps to sectors such as retail, construction and transport sectors.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We were also informed about intimidating actions such as visits by the secret police at companies offices or unjustified, extremely frequent inspections aimed at imposing arbitrary penalties and unjustified obligations to pave the way for a takeover. Let me remind you that Hungary is a member of the EU Single Market, and in the single market there can be no discrimination of companies. They all must have the same right, the same obligations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Then the powers of the National Assembly. In our meetings with representatives of the Hungarian Parliament and civil society, we were informed about flaws in the decision making process, such as reduced time for public consultations, overnight decrees and changes to the budget.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, One example only, in 2022 the budget was modified 95 times without involvement of Parliament in the decision making process. The need for a democratic oversight by the Parliament is essential for the functioning of rule of law and democracy and for proper checks and balances.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Through the issue of governance, finally, local and regional authorities raised concerns about their insufficient involvement in the design of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan and the insufficient recognition of their specific needs.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, I want to clearly underline that for the European Parliament and the CONT Committee, the adequate involvement of local and regional authorities in the design and implementation of the national recovery plans is the key to the success of this instrument. Local and regional authorities know best what the priorities of their communities are. This is why we believe that the co-governance system must be defended and promoted.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, EU funds must reach people and society as a whole. Let me also remind you that the European Parliament insists that EU funds should benefit the Hungarian people and society as a whole. We call on the Hungarian government to give more responsibility and competences to regional authorities instead of a top down approach.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, As I said in the beginning, our goals, our goal is for the EU funds to reach Hungarian citizens, society and economy. We call on the Hungarian government to implement the 27 so-called super milestones, which include 17 remedial measures under the conditionality regulation, as well as the four horizontal enabling conditions without any further delay to finally unblock almost €28 billion, as I heard, this is more than 10,000 billion forints to make this happen.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, So we really would like that Hungary is really receiving as soon as possible the funds. Our goal is not to stop the money. Our goal is that the money is spent in Hungary, so we hope that we could contribute to it. Thank you very much. And I would like to give now the floor to my colleagues. The start is Petri Sarvamaa. He is a member of the European Parliament, very experienced since a long time in the Budget Committee and in the budgetary control committee.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. A very brief statement on my behalf. We are not inventing this stuff. I've been a member of the Budgetary Control Committee for 11 years. We are doing this missions everywhere in the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), We are seeing that the democratic oversight and the legislation, the European law is followed, and our sole purpose is to see that the EU budget is not at risk in any Member State. This is not about Hungary as such. This is very important to understand and I will just maybe stop here. We are happy to take your questions, but these three short days is not at all everything that we know about Hungary and that we have learned over the years and even over decades.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), I personally come from Finland. We love Hungarians. There is no problem with Hungarian people. So we are only to see that the rule of law is being respected and the European budget is protected. Thank you.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), Thank you. From my side to emphasise on what we have come to do here, we have come to Hungary out of concern for our fellow European citizens, not because we are targeting Hungary in particular. We have come out of concern for them for the next generation here and the concern for the future of the European project.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), Why? Well, because there is a significant amount of EU funding frozen at the moment due to this government's lack of progress on rule of law issues. That is not us saying it. That is widely acknowledged and understood in Brussels, hence our visit. We indeed want to ensure that the funding that is available gets to the people of Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), But we cannot do that until the government here makes real progress. And for us, a government that continually uses emergency decrees, gives us a task in proper scrutiny, to say the least. We've met with a variety of stakeholders to get a good and a sound view of the situation with regards to the rule of law and the protection of EU funds here.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), And as my colleague said, the picture that has emerged is one that is of great concern to us and not compatible with the impartiality of budgetary spending here. We are especially concerned at the lack of information in terms of financial oversight of government spending and the existing issues in areas related to control, audit, public procurement and conflicts of interests, at the moment are of very great concern to us.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), Moreover, real change, of course, can only be brought about with real structural and a genuine return to democracy, the rule of law, an independent and free press. And that is, of course, our hope for the future.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, So thank you very much. Just a short information. So because we are asking why Hungary? We were in Spain and Italy, we were in Bulgaria, so we were in different member states, not only Hungary. This is really very important to know. This is what we are always doing between Czechia. So we always do fact finding missions. I would like to give the floor to Daniel Freund, from the Group of the Greens.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), Thanks! For me personally, this is the eighth visit to Hungary during this legislature. And I have to say, every time that I come here, there are new things that you can find out. So even on the eighth visit, there are still things that you find out that I think many of these are unthinkable in any other member state of of the European Union.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), A rule by decree, a state of emergency, for eight years now ongoing, 95 budget amendments without the participation of the national parliament, armed inspections of a soup kitchen by the tax authority. And we heard from the city of Budapest over the last few years a 13 fold increase of their contribution to to the national budget.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), So let me also repeat what my colleagues have said. We want EU funds to go to Hungary and that as fast as possible. We want this money to be able to build schools, to put solar cells on the roofs, to have fast internet everywhere in Hungary, and to do social assistance to the most vulnerable Hungarians. So this money is crucially important to go to Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), But what we do not want is EU funds to just enrich the family and friends of Viktor Orban by breaking EU rules on the fight against corruption on prevention of conflicts of interest. So for me, there are severe doubts that remain that these conditions on fighting corruption, independence of the judiciary, they remain.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), And just to say that this we know that this is creating suffering here, but the withholding of funds in a situation where there's 25% inflation in the country, higher than in any other member state, is creating a situation. But we want the money to go as soon as the reforms that have been negotiated are implemented. Thanks.

Q&amp;A, Question regarding on Hungarian oil company's cessation of negotiations with Ukrainian partner company.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Thanks. In Germany, they have been independent on gas. And so we feel that it's not acceptable, entirely unacceptable, that a country should hand over its sovereignty, hand over any control of its country. Each country has sovereignty, has the right to self-determination, and each country has a right to defend that. We have an interest in peace.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Ukraine is being attacked by Russia and nothing can excuse this. And because of this, state of affairs, many Member States are badly affected by the knock on effects of the war. And for the European Parliament, it's very important that the European Parliament, also the European Commission, look into alternative sources of alternative countries to supply gas, to supply fuel. LNG terminals being constructed in many countries.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We've seen prices drop back down in the energy and electricity sectors. And I think in this sector too, it's important. It's crucial that Hungary work together with other Member States of the European Union, but they don't isolate themselves from the rest. It's important for Member States to pull together to strengthen their position. Because that will improve our power as a market and that's going to be a positive for European businesses and Hungarian businesses.

Q&A, Question regarding on the situation of EU funds in Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), The money should go to Hungary as soon as the agreed conditions with the commission are fulfilled. As we said, 27 super milestones and four horizontal enabling conditions, if they are fulfilled, the money should go to Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), And I hope that the Hungarian government is doing everything in their power to fulfil those conditions as fast as possible. Until that is is not the case, then the money that is currently frozen should remain frozen.

Q&A, Question on suggestions to the European Commission about Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Our fact finding missions are based on the principle that the information we glean from business is from NGOs, from regional and local entities, but also parliamentary bodies and from right across the board. And also including information we receive from the Hungarian authorities is collected and passed on to the European Commission.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We also pass on positive as well as negative information or impressions. So, we have had positive impressions that we took away from the Head of the Integrity Authority. It was a very positive part of the programme. We really felt that something new was starting and we also spoke with NGOs about positive changes.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, All of this will be passed on, but also just as we will pass on the message that the questions we put to the auditing body, the Auditing Authority, and the questions from the representative of the European Court orders, we asked specific questions. Sadly, no specific answers were provided.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, And that is of great concern when an authority like the Audit Authority of Hungary is unable to provide answers or unwilling to provide answers for whatever reason. And that raises a concern for us, which we have to pass on.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We gather information and the facts about discriminatory measures and pass on that message. We've heard this message from various different sources, and it was worrying. It made us uneasy to see just how intimidated people feel. There is clearly cases where people are taking a step back, because they fear potential consequences.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, They have fears about being inspected or being having people descending on the premises, having sanctions slapped on their activities, new regulations, new requirements being decreed or even a new decree that being ushered in that will have a direct impact on them. It was all very oppressive. We gathered facts. Our approach is to take a very cool head to gather information in a dispassionate way. But there was a sense of intimidation, this sense of unease in certain sectors, people working in certain sectors.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Thousands of Hungarian employees are affected. And that makes us worry about the people who are looking to their futures and looking to their employment prospects. All of these facts will be passed on to the European Commission with a request to look into all of it and to take into account all this information for its consideration and deliberation around treaty infringement procedures or decisions relating to the RRF or other European funds.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, We are not the ones who will take a decision. The Cohesion Fund, it's the Member States who have the last word. That's often not said clearly enough that it's not the Commission, because this aspect of the Commission, the evil handed authority that's distant is created. But no, it's the Member State, the Member States that blocked the funds in a long and tortured process. And when at some point it was decided that it was enough.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, The information that we gather, the facts that we gather will be checked and investigated by the European Commission. We will have exchanges with the European Commission. Perhaps there will be questions asked about whether information was one sided, was balanced and balanced, and whether the facts had been checked. And so that may then lead to further discussions and further investigations. I now give the floor to Petri Sarvamaa.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), Yes. I would like to add briefly here that that I can tell you actually that next week, next Wednesday, there will be a joint committee meeting in Brussels, in the European Parliament, of the Budgets Committee and the budgetary control committee. And jointly, we are going to meet the budgets Commissioner, Johannes Hahn, who was here a couple of weeks ago.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), So we will be able to compare the information that he gathered during his talks with the government and the information that we gathered on our fact finding mission. And just one very brief example. You know, we will, of course, obviously tell, for example, that when we met the president of the of the New Integrity Authority, that it was super interesting, very ambitious goals. I'm not don't want to go ahead of things here.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), But this was one example, I think that we found very positive and we were like fairing him well and patting him on the shoulder and saying that, you know, best of luck to you and see you soon, etc., etc.. And this is a guy who was not appointed by the government. So, again, as a proof, no matter what you hear, we are not on a mission from against any political party or for any political party.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), And for example, you know, I cannot know exactly what is the detail of every little piece of information. But I do know, based on yesterday and today, that the mayor of Budapest, what he is saying and what Minister Navracsics is saying is 180 degrees, it's conflicting information. So this we all hear, we hear the Budapest mayor and we hear the minister.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), One is saying one thing, the other is saying the other thing. So this we will also pass on to to the Commission in Brussels. And as was said, I think we still have some some way to go to find out what is actually going on where.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), Just to complement what my colleagues have already said, there will also be a joint resolution in the European Parliament on the current situation of frozen funds in Hungary, probably at the next plenary. And obviously, what we have seen here in the past three days will inform the negotiations and the drafting of of of that resolution that will then be voted in the European Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), So you can see not only the position of of this delegation, as we have explained here, but that this will represent the the the opinion of a broad majority in the in the European Parliament.

Q&A, Daniel Freund's opinion of deliveringQuestion on  weapons to Ukraine.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), This has nothing to do with it with the topic of the speech.

SOUNDBITE (English), Daniel FREUND (Greens/EFA, DE), But yes, I do.

Q&A, Question regarding on EU funds Hungarian policies.and

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, That was precisely the question. And the colleague, Mr. Freund, replied to your question. He said that if the 27 plus 17 conditions and four horizontal enabling conditions are met, then there will be an unblocking of the funds. I think we've heard that answer. He sought to give the answer, and I can only echo that answer. I would give exactly the same response because we are here as the Budgetary Control Committee. We've made this very clear in our opening statement. We work in a fact based way. And your colleague asked that question earlier.

Q&A, Question regarding on corruption in Brussels.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Well, I've already answered questions of this type. I've answered that question in various situations. Well, any people working in the sphere of the European Parliament as staff or in other capacities, must stand every held accountable in Belgium. And the same, I hope, will be the case for those involved in manipulative acts in Hungary, that these will be held accountable.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, That legislation relating to tendering procedures and manipulations will end up before the legal system. We asked the Court of Auditors about the number of cases submitted to the state prosecutor. We asked the Audit Authority that question. We got no answer. So clearly, anyone who breaks the law must be held accountable before the law. And that's the very foundation of our system, which is based on the rule of law.

Q&A, Question regarding on negotiations with Hungarian goverment on the EU funds.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Are they untoward, in-flight and Zofran given then? If the 17 remedial measures are met, if these 27 super milestones are met, and as a surplus, if the four horizontal points are met, then if they are really implemented, credibly implemented, and if they are sustainably implemented, then the money should go to Hungary.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, This is why we really call on the Hungarian government. Please implement the measures as soon as possible, as quick as possible, because we would like to reach European funds to the whole of the population and the Hungarian society. This is our wish.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, And secondly, whom have we met? The second question I give to Laura. We had a very good talk with Minister Navratil. She took really, a lot of times, even if we don't have the same opinion on all of the questions. So there were political differences, but.....

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Secondly, we met the state secretary of the Justice Ministry. The Minister of Justice was not available for us. So not everybody was available for us. But to be clear, this is normal in other member states. They are not available either. But we were a little bit astonished by the Justice Ministry. The state secretary took a lot of time, that was fine, even if there are politically different opinions on certain issues.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, This is normal. But I think that the conditionality mechanism and underlying rule of law, issues are of major importance, so that we thought that this could be interesting for the justice minister to talk to the European Parliament and to explain perhaps certain issues from there from her point of view. But this was not the case. You have to ask the minister why she was not available. I don't want to criticise this, but this was not the case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), Yes, just from from my side as well. The minister Judit Varga was not available to meet with us. We have not, I think, received further information as to why this was the case. But of course, I echoed the sentiment that this was, to us surprising since we are talking about billions of euros that we would like to see go to Hungarians for some very important projects that can improve the quality of life.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), So we do think that in such a case that there is very good reason to meet and we were rather rather surprised by this. We hope that we should not read into this. But but of course, it was a question mark. Secondly, one observation from our meetings here, we heard things that were contradictory between some of the stakeholders that we met.

SOUNDBITE (English), Lara WOLTERS (S&D, NL), But another contradiction that I did want to point out was the contrast between the availability and the formality and the...We were received with of certain ministries and the atmosphere created here in terms of media attention, which from the from the beginning was rather hostile. And this contrast to us, I think has not been beneficial to our work and has made the visit more tense than it ought to be, because we have come here in a spirit of openness and cooperation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), I would also like to add to your question about you as to when, and this is for the Commission to assess, but I can tell you that there are not like different opinions or it's not an opinion, it's not about opinions. There are not different views or different opinions between the Commission and the Parliament.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), I will not say anything on behalf of the Commission, but I can say on the behalf of us and Parliament and with my contacts with the Commission that we we both want exactly the one and only and the same thing. And this has been already repeated several times here. Put an end to breaches of the rule of law. And this is what I was referring to in my opening statement, that this is not something that is our invention.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), That it's a it's not invention of any political party represented in the European Parliament. It's not the invention of the European Parliament. It's not a conspiracy. It is a fact finding by all relevant European institutions. And we have to remember that 25 of the 27 Member States agreed and decided to freeze this awful amount of funds from Hungary. So this is where we are with it.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), And the only answer to your question is again, repeating, repeating, repeating. When the commission insists that everything is in place and here, by the way, it's very important that I think the common understanding is that everything has to be fulfilled, not partially not 24 or 17 or something and then there would be a proportionate amount of money released.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), No, it's like in all negotiations. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. And but this, of course, is between the Hungarian government and the European Commission.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Well, yes, I can say very quickly that the committee Chairs and the members of the committees were invited. We wished to meet them. We did not limit our invitation to the Chairs of committees. In the end, we met four committee Chairs. But on our side, there's a very strong desire to meet a rank full of parliamentarians, not just the Chairs of committees.

Q&A, Question regarding on the involved agents in the delegation. Second question on negotiations with parliamentary commissions and the position of the Member States.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Because that's how we see ourselves. And so, of course, we understand that the parliamentary representatives can organise things. We allow them some flexibility as to whether or not they will speak to us. That's the prerogative of the Hungarian Parliament in this case.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, No, we don't have any members in the Budgetary Control Committee from Fidesz party. So, the question didn't even come up at a hearing. There was a difficult situation because someone from the Fidesz party turned up at the hearing and demanded to be given the floor.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, And I felt bound by the coordinator's decisions to respect the decisions regarding those people who had raised the desire to speak. So, unfortunately reports came out that he was denied a possibility to speak in the appointment. That is not the case. Everyone is able to speak in the open Parliament if they express the desire to speak in good time, early enough to allow that to be planned. Otherwise, any last minute, requests for the floor can be detrimental potentially to others who did wish to participate in good time.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Now, these are just part of our daily work. As parliamentarians, we have a very close knit delegation. We share cross party decisions and positions. So, as the Budgetary Control Committee, it is crucial that we make it clear this is not a party political endeavour.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, The European Parliament, just as the 25 Member States, have united position when it comes to the need to respect the rule of law, to respect the principles of a free internal market and on the points of principle relating to conditionality, mechanism and also the European funds being protected.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), Well I do believe that it's important to to underline here since there have been some media reports pointing to the to the delegation and how it is consistent that that it's that that that it's maybe biased or something like this. But please note that actually the Hungarian government is represented. If we look at the party affiliation representation in the European Parliament, KDNP.

SOUNDBITE (English), Petri SARVAMAA (EPP, FI), The party of Minister Navracsics is in the same political party in the European Parliament as our chair Monika Hohlmeier and myself. We are all in EPP in the European Parliament. So actually a Hungarian government, true representation in the European Parliament is represented in this delegation.

SOUNDBITE (English), Monika HOHLMEIER (EPP, DE), Head of the delegation, Just one more word about the composition of this delegation or delegation of this type. The fact that we have had the S&amp;D, EPP and Greens sitting before, it is nothing to do with any kind of ban on anyone participating. We had the Renew group member with us until yesterday who had to leave ECR, The Left and others could have participated as well. It was their own decision whether or not to participate in a delegation, just their own personal decision.