Szeged: Hungary’s second city lost researchers and students when its universities fell outside EU programmes over governance disputes. Budapest has now told the Commission the conditions are met, and the Commission must decide whether to agree.
Hungary formally notified the Commission on 9 September under the Rule of Law Conditionality Regulation, setting out the measures it says remedy the situation that triggered protective measures in the first place. Roughly 4.2 billion euros in cohesion funding rests on the assessment.
The notification follows an agreement Prime Minister Peter Magyar reached with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in May and a set of reforms the Hungarian parliament passed in June. Those commitments include joining the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, phasing out the public interest trusts that controlled university assets, and tightening anti-corruption safeguards. Taken together with the recovery plan milestones, the package touches some 16.4 billion euros.
The Commission’s 2026 Rule of Law Report, published on 17 July, records the change in tone. It states that the new government has engaged in intense reforms to restore the rule of law, and it notes legislative progress under both the recovery plan and the conditionality regime.
The same report keeps two findings on the table. Lower courts still allocate cases without the transparency the Commission requested. And the election procedure for the Prosecutor General, combined with the hierarchical structure of the prosecution service, still creates a risk of political interference in individual cases.
Those two gaps will decide how this ends. The conditionality regulation asks whether breaches affect or seriously risk affecting the Union budget, not whether a country’s institutions look healthy in general. A government can therefore satisfy the budget test while leaving democratic concerns the same report describes.
Parliament will contest exactly that distinction. MEPs spent years arguing the Commission released money for Hungary too readily under the previous government, and they show no appetite for a quick assessment simply because the politics in Budapest changed. Expect a resolution, and expect the Commission to set it aside, because the regulation gives Parliament no veto.
The Commission now assesses the notification, consults Hungary, and can then propose repeal to the Council, where a qualified majority decides. Member states that resisted the original measures will press for closure. Those that pushed hardest for them will want the two outstanding findings addressed first.
For Szeged, the practical test is simpler. Money moves, or it does not, before the academic year ends.
