The European Union has not placed Hungary in a quarantine; there are disputes with the bloc but no more than average in any EU state, Hungarian President Janos Ader told weekly Heti Valasz.
“Anyone who thinks or wants others to think that the EU has no other issue on its agenda than Hungary is sadly mistaken,” he said in an interview to appear in the paper’s Thursday issue.
Ader said disputes between European institutions and member states were part of democratic functioning, just like clashes between parties in national parliaments.
Ader said his talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso scheduled next week would focus on the issue of cohesion funds.
The EU decided in March to suspend a part of catch-up funds to Hungary from 2013 if government measures to get the budget deficit below 3 percent of GDP were insufficient. The EC recommended lifting the suspension at the end of May and the government expects this to happen on June 22.
Ader said he would tell Barroso that the positions considered so far should be adjusted to the impact of a prolonged crisis.
Ader added that Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Parliamentary Speaker Laszlo Kover had expressed a need for regular meetings between the three of them to “facilitate the representation of Hungarian interests in the international arena”.
