Why Hungary and Poland Are Blocking the EU’s $2.2 Trillion Budget

Why are Hungary and Poland blocking the European Union’s 1.8 trillion euro ($2.2 trillion) spending plan at a time when the pandemic’s resurgence is causing deep economic pain? Leaders of the two countries say it’s to squelch new rules over the disbursement of aid they say would impose “foreign” values like gay marriage. Other EU countries say the rules are primarily to prevent an unprecedented outpouring of aid from being handed out to cronies. More broadly, they are meant to put teeth into the EU’s so-far unsuccessful efforts to keep Hungary and Poland from backsliding further from the bloc’s core democratic values.

EU leaders unanimously agreed in July to for the first time attach what are known as rule-of-law conditions to the disbursement of EU funds. The move covered a new coronavirus stimulus pact as well as the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget.