Hungary’s €10 billion proof test

Hungary has kept the door open to roughly €10 billion in EU recovery money. It has not yet got the money, and it has not yet proved to Brussels that it has met the conditions attached to it.

Budapest revised its recovery plan twice before the August deadline, a manoeuvre that preserved access to the funds. The real test now comes with the formal payment request, due by the end of September. Only then can the European Commission assess whether Hungary has actually cleared the rule-of-law and anti-corruption hurdles that froze the money in the first place.

Approved route, empty account

On 10 July, the Council of the EU, where national ministers vote on policy, approved Hungary's revised recovery plan (Council press release, EUR-Lex COM(2026)316). That created a route to about €6.5 billion in grants and €3.5 billion in loans (Commission staff assessment).

A second revision followed in August. Budapest submitted 36 further measures on 25 July; the Commission backed the change on 5 August (Telex, EUR-Lex COM(2026)432). But approving a revised plan is not the same as approving a payment. The Commission said in April and again in July that it can only assess Hungary's 27 super-milestones once the official payment request lands. These milestones are the rule-of-law and anti-corruption conditions blocking the transfer. According to a Commission response reported by Infostart, no money has moved.

So when Hungary said at the end of August that it had met all the conditions, that was Budapest making a political claim. It was not a Commission finding.

What Budapest still has to prove

The 27 super-milestones cover anti-corruption enforcement, judicial independence, university governance and control over EU funds. HVG reported that 21 relate to corruption and transparency, four to the judiciary, and two to financial controls.

Péter Magyar's government, which replaced Viktor Orbán's Fidesz after last year's political upheaval, has moved at speed. Budapest passed laws allowing judicial review of dropped corruption cases, returned assets from Orbán-era public-interest foundations to the state, and joined the European Public Prosecutor's Office, or EPPO, the EU body that investigates crimes against the Union's budget. EU Law Live confirmed Hungary's EPPO accession, but the practical test is still to come: prosecutors appointed, resources provided, and politically sensitive cases properly reachable.

That speed brings its own weakness. Hungary's Constitutional Court is reviewing an opposition challenge to the EU compliance package, the bundle of laws Budapest is using as evidence that it met the milestones. If the court strikes down parts of it, the Commission may be left looking at reforms that exist in the file but not in enforceable law.

The timetable now pressures both sides

The final stretch is tight. Reforms and investments had to be completed by 31 August 2026. Final payment requests are due by the end of September. The Commission must issue final payments by 31 December (Commission closure guidance, EU Perspectives). That gives Brussels little time to verify complex reforms without either slowing the money or accepting a thinner standard of proof.

The Dutch government has been the clearest voice urging caution. In parliamentary answers, it said blocked funds should not be released without full compliance, and that wrongly released money should be recovered. Dutch budget documents also noted that Hungary had already lost €1 billion at the end of 2024 and another €1 billion at the end of 2025 for missing earlier deadlines. Under the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU's post-pandemic fund, missed deadlines can destroy access permanently. They do not merely push payment into the next quarter.

Poland is the closest comparison. After its own rule-of-law freeze, a change of government reopened the path to recovery funding. But the money came in stages, with each tranche requiring a separate payment request, Commission assessment, and opinion from the Economic and Financial Committee, the expert body that advises EU finance ministers before funds move (TVN24). Poland shows the process, not the result. Its conditions were mainly judicial. Hungary's reach across corruption, transparency, prosecution capacity, university governance and financial controls, and they are being assessed against a much tighter clock (Cambridge, European Journal of Risk Regulation).

The main uncertainty has shifted from Budapest to Brussels. Hungary can file its request and say the work is done. The Commission now has to decide whether 27 conditions can be checked, the advisory committee consulted, and a disbursement decision issued before December without turning verification into a rubber stamp.