Minister of State in charge of the Prime Minister's Office, who also heads the National Development Agency as a Government Commissioner, will meet European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn again in September - Minister of State in charge of European Affairs Enikő Győri responded at a press conference held after a meeting of the State Secretaries for European Affairs of the Visegrád Group countries on August 26, 2013. She added that experts of both the European Commission and Hungary are working to prevent the loss of these funds.

Speaking at the press conference, Enikő Győri stated that efforts have to be made to come to an agreement with the European Commission, because if they waited for the European Court to resolve the issue, the country could lose the funds in question by the time a final ruling is made.  The current EU multiannual financial framework, which began in 2007, is to end this year, and this was why the Commission decided to “tidy up the house” with respect to projects in process, so the decision on the suspension of the funding was not unexpected.

Polish State Secretary for European Affairs Piotr Serafin declared that it could happen to any member state that payment of their EU funds is suspended, and that the cooperation of the V4 countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary – was also important when it came to transposing legal regulations on cohesion policy.

Peter Javorcik, State Secretary for European Affairs of Slovakia, also emphasised that the suspension of funds also occurs from time to time with older member states, and there was nothing surprising in this.

Vojtech Belling, State Secretary for European Affairs of the Czech Republic, said that the four Visegrád countries were struggling with the same problems with respect to the distribution of EU funds. The EU suspended some operative programs in the Czech Republic last year and a long series of discussions were needed at the time to develop an action plan for re-launching them.

Enikő Győri explained that the State Secretaries meeting in Balatonfüred organised within the framework of the Hungarian V4 Presidency discussed the most important issues of the Lithuanian EU Presidency, in which regional cooperation could play an important role. They also discussed their positions on the agreement regarding the coordinated development of transport infrastructure between the V4 countries adopted during the Polish Presidency and on the EU Climate Protection Agreement, which is currently under development. The State Secretaries for European Affairs of the Visegrád Group countries met in Balatonfüred in preparation for the two-day meeting of the EU General Affairs Council that is to convene in Vilnius on Thursday.

(Ministry of Foreign Affairs)