Hungary Joins EU Prosecutor For €10 Billion

For five years, Hungary stayed outside the European Public Prosecutor's Office, the EU body with the power to investigate fraud against the Union budget without waiting for national prosecutors to move. In Brussels, that refusal came to stand for something larger: Budapest's rejection of outside checks on how EU money was spent. It was also one reason billions in EU funds remained frozen.

On 10 July, the European Commission confirmed Hungary as EPPO's 25th member (EU Law Live, Devdiscourse/Reuters). The decision takes effect on 2 August (eucrim). But joining the office is the easy part. Hungary has not yet built the domestic machinery EPPO needs before it can open a single case.

Who gets to investigate

Hungary must now decide who speaks for EPPO inside the country. On 22 July, the Justice Ministry said a working group was preparing a constitutional amendment for the autumn. That amendment would set the rules for Hungary's European Prosecutor and for the delegated prosecutors who would handle cases on Hungarian soil (24.hu). Criminal-procedure changes are expected by early 2027.

The process runs through both Budapest and Brussels. Hungary nominates three candidates for its European Prosecutor seat. The Council of the EU, where national ministers meet, appoints one after consulting an independent panel. Delegated prosecutors then have to be fitted into the Hungarian system, with police, audit bodies and courts obliged to cooperate with them.

That is where the real test sits. If the rules allow the government to control who gets these posts, EPPO membership becomes a badge rather than a constraint. If the appointments are genuinely independent, Hungary will have accepted the kind of external scrutiny it spent half a decade resisting.

For Maltese readers, the mechanism is familiar. EU rule-of-law pressure is rarely about one grand declaration. It works through appointments, prosecutorial powers, audit trails and access to funds. The question is always whether the institution can act when the case touches political power.

The leverage behind the decision

Hungary's move is part of a negotiation over roughly €10 billion in frozen EU recovery and cohesion funds. Recovery funds are the post-pandemic money shared across member states; cohesion funds are meant to reduce regional gaps inside the Union. Brussels has blocked parts of Hungary's access since 2022 over rule-of-law and anti-corruption concerns. The Council linked those financial measures directly to procurement irregularities and weak prosecutorial action (Council Decision 2022/2506).

EPPO membership answers one condition, not the whole file. Hungary still faces 27 reform milestones due by 31 August and must separately persuade the Commission that the 2022 concerns have been fixed (EU Perspectives). The Commission's 2026 Rule of Law Report credited the EPPO move but warned that prosecution independence and enforcement against high-level corruption remained weak points (European Commission).

As we reported earlier this month, Hungary's own Integrity Authority found systemic overpricing built into public procurement even when formal legal procedures are followed (To Brief). That matters because an EU prosecutor can chase fraud cases, but cannot by itself repair a procurement market designed to produce inflated prices.

What EPPO can and cannot reach

EPPO prosecutes crimes against the EU's financial interests: fraud involving EU spending or revenue, corruption linked to EU funds, and cross-border VAT fraud above a €10 million threshold (Regulation 2017/1939). Domestic corruption with no connection to the EU budget remains outside its mandate (Le Club des Juristes).

There is also a time limit. According to Quotidiano, EPPO will have competence over qualifying offences committed from 1 June 2021, when the office began operating elsewhere. Anything before that stays with Hungarian prosecutors.

Poland shows what operational membership can mean. After Warsaw joined EPPO following its own rule-of-law confrontation, the office carried out investigative measures in July 2026 in a Katowice customs and VAT fraud probe (EPPO). Romania shows the limit of the tool. EPPO has been active there since 2021, yet the Commission's latest findings still pointed to weak progress on judicial corruption (G4Media).

An EU prosecutor can open cases. It cannot rebuild a justice system.

The accession decision is binding EU law, and EPPO's reach can extend back to mid-2021 for qualifying offences. The autumn constitutional amendment will show whether Péter Magyar's government has accepted outside prosecution as a real check, or whether it is treating EPPO membership as another condition to manage in the fight over frozen funds.