'Our position on EU budget remains unchanged': Morawiecki and Orban
The Prime Ministers of Poland and Hungary, Mateusz Morawiecki and Viktor Orban, in their joint declaration, maintained their position on the EU budget for the next seven years. "Our position has remained the same since the beginning of the negotiations on the budget proposals presented in 2018," reads the statement signed in Budapest on Thursday.
The six-point declaration stated that the common goal of both governments is "to counteract the emergence of a mechanism that will not only fail to strengthen but even undermine the rule of law in the Union by relegating it to the role of a political tool."
"The proposed conditionality circumvents the Treaty, uses unclear definitions and ambiguous terms without clear criteria on which sanctions can be based, and does not contain any meaningful procedural guarantees," it noted.
"Our countries have acted and are operating on the basis of loyal cooperation and solidarity. We remain ready to help resolve the current situation. We reiterate that this requires significant changes to the currently proposed mechanism," both PMs added.
According to the Polish and Hungarian governments, "the result of the negotiations between the Council Presidency and the European Parliament is not in line with the agreement reached by heads of state and government at the July European Council."
(PAP)
