Strasbourg, 15 February 2022
When: Wednesday 16 February at 11.30
Where: Daphne Caruana Galizia Press room (EP Strasbourg premises) and via Interactio
Speakers:
- Petri Sarvamaa (EPP, FI) , co-rapporteur
- Eider Gardiazabal Rubial (S&D, ES), co-rapporteur
- Katalin Cseh (Renew, HU), shadow rapporteur
- Daniel Freund (Greens/EFA, DE), shadow rapporteur
Interpretation will be available in English, French, German, Spanish, Hungarian and Polish.
Journalists wishing to actively participate and ask questions, please connect via Interactio by using this:
https://broadcaster.interactio.eu/join/66e2-hy1p-1w4u
You can follow it live from 11.30 via EP Multimedia center and on EbS Live.
The plenary debate
The press conference takes place ahead of the plenary debate with Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn Wednesday at around 16.00.
Background
The budget conditionality regulation aims to protect EU funds from being misused by national governments that breach the rule of law. The regulation entered into force on 1 January 2021. Until now, the Commission has not applied it.
On 11 March 2021, Poland and Hungary challenged the regulation in the EU Court of Justice. On 2 December 2021, the Advocate-General issued an opinion stating that actions by Hungary and Poland against the rules on conditionality, which protect the European Union’s budget, should be dismissed by the Court.