The Court of Justice of the European Union’s top legal adviser has published an opinion urging the court to annul a European Commission decision that lifted the suspension on the disbursement of around €10.2 billion in EU funds to Hungary, saying the Commission moved too soon and failed to properly justify its assessment.
In an opinion published on Thursday, Advocate-General Tamara Ćapeta backed an action brought by the European Parliament seeking to strike down a decision made by the Commission in December 2023, which concluded that Hungary had met key conditions to address concerns over judicial independence to justify the release of funds previously withheld by the EU executive.
Ćapeta’s core view was that once the Commission sets specific requirements a member state must meet to unlock payments, it “may not enable payment until each of those requirements has been fulfilled.” She said the Commission “incorrectly applied the requirements imposed on Hungary” by allowing funds to be disbursed “without any explanation” before certain required legislative reforms had entered into force or were being applied.
The Advocate-General also said the Commission failed to carry out a proper assessment in several areas linked to the conditions it had imposed, including reforms relating to the independence of Hungary’s Supreme Court, rules on judicial appointments involving members of the Constitutional Court, and changes meant to remove obstacles to national judges making preliminary references to the EU court.
She further faulted the Commission for not adequately addressing subsequent legislative developments that could “undermine or offset” the objectives of the reforms Hungary had undertaken.
Separately, on a claim by the European Parliament that the Commission had failed to explain its decision-making, Ćapeta said the Commission breached its duty to state reasons and argued that, given the public interest in EU budget disbursements, the Commission owes an explanation “not only to Hungary, but to the EU citizens at large” as to why it released the funds.
However, Ćapeta did not endorse the Parliament’s most politically charged allegation. On the claim that the Commission misused its powers, she concluded that the assertions were not sufficiently substantiated and proposed that the court reject that plea.
❗️If anyone had doubts about what @ManfredWeber’s @EPPGroup lackeys represent in the @Europarl_EN, here is Tisza MEP Kinga Kollár celebrating the “deteriorating standard of living” of the Hungarian people due to frozen EU funding as it helps them get elected. pic.twitter.com/Hus7Nv2AuY
— Zoltan Kovacs (@zoltanspox) April 9, 2025Advocate-General opinions are advisory and not binding, but they are frequently followed in the court’s final judgments.
The opinion comes at a politically sensitive time, just two months before Hungary’s hotly contested election, widely considered to be Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s toughest test to date.
Hungary’s leadership has long rejected rule-of-law and corruption criticisms and framed EU pressure as interference in national sovereignty.
The release of the funds in question had been a longstanding dispute between Budapest and Brussels, and the Commission’s withholding of monies owed had fuelled accusations by the Orbán government of blackmail aimed at hurting the nationalist administration.
Orbán previously also accused the Hungarian opposition of being in cahoots with Brussels to force a change in government. In May last year, the Hungarian leader accused the Tisza party of deliberately undermining Hungary’s economy and living standards to boost their own political ambitions.
His remarks followed controversial comments made in the European Parliament during a budget control committee hearing, where Tisza MEP Kinga Kollár openly acknowledged the severe impact of the EU’s decision to freeze billions in funding and praised it for being effective, despite the consequences for Hungarian citizens.
“It has had a serious impact on the Hungarian state. It cannot invest in public infrastructure. It cannot support the Hungarian economy and cannot provide basic social services to its people. Just to highlight a few examples from the RRF (Recovery and Resilience Facility), 50 hospitals could have been renovated, which did not happen. So you can actually say the conditionality regulation has been very effective and has had a very effective impact on the everyday lives of Hungarians,” Kollár stated.
“On the positive side, the deteriorating standard of living has actually strengthened the opposition, and I am very positive about the ’26 elections,” she added.
Last April, Orbán reiterated that the funds were not a gift or an act of generosity from Brussels, but were monies owed to Hungary as an EU member state.
“This is the European Union, where we have rights, and we exercise our rights within the European Union. We are entitled to this money, you know? We don’t receive this as support or assistance, we have a right to this, for many reasons. First of all, we paid for it. This money is not given as a gift, we paid the price for it in advance,” he said.
