On March 14, 2012, nine countries supported Hungary in the cohesion funds suspension vote in the EU Parliament. This was the first time in the European Union's history that cohesion funds were frozen for any of its members. EU finance minsters approved a partial suspension of a total of 495 million euros cohesion funds for Hungary for the next year. If the budget deficit is kept below 3 per cent by the actions of the Hungarian government, then the decision could be repealed in June of this year.
It has been reported that France, Germany, Slovakia, Denmark and Finland supported the decision against Hungary. The countries that supported Hungary against this action were: Great Britain, Sweden, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Austria, Spain, Latvia and Lithuania. This action by the EU finance ministers is no surprise as smaller countries in the EU are not treated equally. Because of the recent political events in Hungary regarding the EU, it seems as if Hungary is getting the "short end of the stick". Prime Minister Orbán Viktor was entirely correct in his speech on the national holiday when he said that Hungary was not treated as "equals" by Brussels. One thing that supports this notion is that Portugal's financial situation is two times worse than that of Hungary's. Yet, no freezing of cohesion funds by the EU against Portugal has taken place. What a nice political organization! We all know what Greece's situation is like, no comment. Nevertheless, we would like to thank these nine countries in expressing their solidarity with Hungary.
