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HATC SAMPLE EDITION:
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31st March, 2026
Hungary lags in repaying disputed funds to EU
Hungary repaid only a small share of EU funds flagged by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2015-24, according to data shared with the Financial Times.
Hungarian cases accounted for 16% of all EU funds investigated for suspected fraud during the period.
OLAF identified irregularities involving €1.4 billion in EU funding in Hungary. Of this, Budapest reimbursed just €250.6 million – around 18% of the total – to the EU budget.
Elsewhere in the bloc, member states have taken a different approach. On average, they repaid 71% of the funds flagged by OLAF, amounting to €5.2 billion out of €7.2 billion.
According to Portfolio, Hungary’s low repayment rate reflects a distinctive practice.
Rather than repaying contested funds, the government typically withdraws the affected projects from EU financing and covers them from the national budget.
It then looks to reallocate the corresponding EU funds to other projects.
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Sources regularly consulted, with abbreviations used in text: Népszabadság (N); Magyar Hírlap (MH); Világgazdaság (VG); Napi Gazdaság (NG); Magyar Nemzet (MN); Népszava (Nsz); Kossuth Rádió news (KR); nightly TV news (TV).
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