Klára Dobrev (pictured on top), an MEP for the leftist party, told a press conference that the government was also holding the deal hostage because it did not want the dispersal of EU funds to be linked to the issue of the rule of law.

She said DK will not back the government’s draft resolution aimed at giving itself a mandate to negotiate on the European Union’s loan package for rebooting the economy.

Dobrev accused Orbán of showing willingness to withhold EU support from European small business owners, jobseekers and from the development of coronavirus treatments until the bloc “gives him the okay to continue using EU funds as he pleases”.

Ruling Fidesz said in reaction that “the party of [ex-premier] Ferenc Gyurcsány” was “again going against Hungary’s interests”.

The ruling parties have three requirements when it comes to the loan package, István Hollik, Fidesz’s communications director, told a press conference, saying that the package should be fair, the money coming from it should be spent on rebooting the economy and it should not be mixed with politics.

He insisted that these conditions represented Hungary’s national interests, and the ruling parties had therefore asked the left-wing opposition “not to turn the issue of the recovery plan into a partisan political battle; but it appears they’ve failed.”


MTI Photo: Zoltán Máthé