The European Commission has stripped €1.04 billion in aid from Hungary in the latest phase of an ongoing political struggle with its errant member state.
The amount of money lost is a blow for Hungary, but the decision also has wider economic and geopolitical implications. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has consistently flouted EU standards and democratic principles. The question now is whether he has run out of options.
The European Union mobilises and redistributes a vast amount of collective funding to its poorer countries and regions. Since the 1970s, a complex set of funding instruments has emerged under the banner of “cohesion policy”.
