BRUSSELS ― The European Commission is set to tighten the screws on countries that breach democratic norms by linking billions of euros in payouts to adherence to European standards. It means that governments, notably Hungary, which have fallen foul of EU rule-of-law standards through crackdowns on judicial and media freedoms, risk losing substantial funding from the EU’s centralized budget. The EU’s 2028-2034 spending plan, scheduled to be published next Wednesday and marking the start of at least a couple of years of laborious negotiations, will extend the link between payments and democratic backsliding, according to a document seen by POLITICO. Previously, only parts of the €1.2 trillion budget have been linked. The move is likely to exacerbate tensions between the Commission and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who faces the very real prospect of losing power after 15 years in an election slated for 2026. He’s had a turbulent relationship with EU policymakers and fellow governments, which have criticized what they see as his Russia-friendly and authoritarian policies. While the EU has taken action against Hungary and already withheld some funding ― and Orbán has made life difficult by threatening to block European efforts to sanction Moscow ― the next budget “will provide for a streamlined and harmonized conditionality system for all EU funds allocated to member states,” according to the document. The Commission wants to move away from the current system where “member states with particular issues could be tempted to shift some investments between programs to avoid being subject to a particular condition,” it states. Several EU countries supported tightening the link between the rule of law and funding in their submissions to the Commission ahead of the budget proposal. After its publication, governments will begin negotiations with each other on a final text ― but this is a lengthy process that is not expected to conclude until 2027. “The Conditionality Regulation must be applied to all EU funding,” Finland wrote in its position paper on the new budget, seen by POLITICO. But Hungary retorted in its own document that these rules “allowed for exerting arbitrary political pressure in policy areas unrelated to the protection of the Union’s budget.” Slovakia, which has also been criticized over rule-of-law issues, echoed these arguments in its own submission. OUT OF OFFICE Hungary is already losing out on €18 billion in funding that was suspended over its breaches of European law in the past few years. Orbán, who is campaigning on an anti-EU platform, is unlikely to make moves to claim back the payments before he faces the public vote. According to an EU diplomat, the Commission is exploiting Orbán’s domestic weaknesses ― he is trailing behind his conservative pro-EU rival Péter Magyar in the polls ― to propose stricter rules. With national capitals not expected to vote on the new rules until 2027, there’s a chance Orbán might be out of office before the budget is approved. Commission officials are confident that a Magyar-led government would mend ties with Brussels and implement the EU-required reforms to access blocked funds. Viktor Orbán, who is campaigning on an anti-EU platform, is unlikely to make moves to claim back the payments before he faces the public vote. | Oliver Matthys/EPA Under the plan, the budget would contain a direct link between a government’s breach of the rule of law and the related payment that is put on hold, an EU official said. This means that while farmers’ subsidies will be untouched by a government’s authoritarian drift, a student exchange program might suffer if there have been breaches of academic freedom. The Commission wants to keep the money flowing to the recipients of EU funding ― such as NGOs or universities ― regardless of whether a government complies with the rule of law. The overall idea is that civil society shouldn’t bear the brunt of a leader’s misdoings. Renew, the European Parliament’s liberal group, wants to take this a step further. It supports directly handing the frozen EU funds to civil society, effectively bypassing the central government. This new system, known as “smart conditionality,” would mark a change from the current rules, where frozen funds are handed back to the EU’s 27 countries collectively after an expiration date. “We set clear conditions: No EU money for autocrats, but continued support for civil society,” Valérie Hayer, the chair of Renew, said on Thursday. “She [Commission President Ursula von der Leyen] made a commitment. Now it’s up to her to keep her word.” However, “smart conditionality” has been criticized on the grounds that it reduces the incentives for national governments to carry out the required reforms. Commissioners are expected to iron out this issue during emergency talks on the budget slated for the weekend.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission’s plan to slash bureaucracy for farmers risks hurting the planet. The EU executive wants to give out more cash to aid farmers hit by natural disasters while weakening the very green rules that are meant to safeguard the environment. That’s the main takeaway of a planned package of reforms to simplify EU farm policies, which account for over a third of the bloc’s total spending. It follows up on a major rollback of the Green Deal last year, as rural protests overshadowed campaigning for the European election last June. According to a draft seen by POLITICO, the agriculture simplification package would further scale back environmental controls on the disbursement of funds under the Common Agricultural Policy. It would also exempt smallholders from some checks and raise the cap on subsidy payments to small farms. “A better balance between requirements and incentives is needed for guiding the sustainability transition of farming and fostering innovation,” the EU executive writes in the preamble to an amending regulation that would scale back conditions applying to country-level CAP plans that have been up and running for a few years. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen insisted ahead of the presentation of the reform on May 14 that the Commission would support the sector’s sustainability transition. “We cannot have a discussion on the future of agriculture without addressing resilience. Therefore it is important that we improve risk and crisis management to adapt to climate change,” he said in a speech on Thursday, adding that farmers should get more help “to restore their production potential” after natural disasters. The agriculture package — one of several “omnibus” measures to simplify EU regulation — arrives in the middle of a broader debate on future priorities. With the war in Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump’s turn away from Europe, Ursula von der Leyen wants to put more emphasis on industrial competitiveness and international security. But with the Commission due to land a long-term budget plan in July for the period 2028-2034 to fund those priorities, its farm department, agriculture ministers and European lawmakers are all saying agriculture spending should rise, rather than be cut, to ensure that farming in Europe has an economic future. Hansen, a former beef farmer from Luxembourg, has vowed to defend these priorities and protect farmers from budget cuts. They are also a priority of his political family — the European People’s Party — that has positioned itself as the farmers’ champion. LOOSER STANDARDS The draft document proposes more flexibility in how farmers implement some green standards — known as good agricultural and environmental condition of land requirements, or GAECs — where compliance is tied to farm subsidy payouts. For example, it wants to make it easier for farmers to use permanent grasslands under GAEC 1, which are normally set aside to boost biodiversity and carbon sequestration. The draft would increase the maximum amount that can be lost from 5 to 10 percent compared to 2018, notably to take into account the needs of farms, such as increasing production. Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen insisted ahead of the presentation of the reform on May 14 that the Commission would support the sector’s sustainability transition. | Oliver Hoslet/EPA The document also foresees changing the definition of what is considered a “water course” in the standard related to the protection of water (GAEC 4). This could lead to fewer rivers meeting the definition to be protected and therefore fewer buffer strips being put in place to prevent agricultural pollution and runoffs. When it comes to protecting wetlands and peatlands under GAEC 2, the Commission acknowledges that the obligation can “be costly for farmers” and “significantly limit their capacity to change or adjust the use of their land.” Therefore, it proposes to allow member countries to better compensate farmers for this work without increasing protection requirements. An EU official suggested the simplification package could have hurt the Green Deal more, noting pressure from EU member countries to cut green requirements even further. The official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, disputed that the legislation compromised the credibility of the Green Deal, arguing that it makes the system for implementing the CAP’s green standards more feasible, realistic and focused on incentives. DISASTER RELIEF In the short run, the Commission wants to make it easier for EU governments to hand out cash to support farmers hit by climate impacts, such as flooding and drought. The proposal foresees the creation of two new funds and would authorize direct payments to “enable the most affected farmers to be compensated rapidly.” National authorities should also set a “higher rate of compensation” for farmers who are covered by insurance or other risk management tools, according to the document. The system of conditionality, which restricts how national authorities can disburse CAP funding contributing to the protection of nature, the environment and climate, “should not apply to complementary payments to farmers following natural disasters, adverse climatic events or catastrophic events under direct payments,” the document adds. The simplification follows an 18-month policy process that von der Leyen initiated by holding a Strategic Dialogue on the Future of EU Agriculture that came up with an extensive catalog of policy recommendations. These were then poured into Hansen’s own Vision for Agriculture and Food in February. The simplification measures respond to some recommendations from the strategic dialogue, notably on the need to promote organic farming. But they appear to clash with others, such as more action to “facilitate the adaptation of agriculture to changing climatic and environmental conditions, … practices to advance towards water-resilient and less resource intensive farming.”

LONDON — T.S. Eliot wrote that April is the cruelest month. For Keir Starmer, June will be the most grueling. The U.K. prime minister will reckon with an avalanche of reviews — on spending, defense, China, welfare, immigration, industry, trade and more — that start to turn nebulous policy into something more concrete for his nascent Labour government. Put simply: sh*t is getting real. For some of Starmer’s own MPs, more firm direction will be a relief. His first few months in office were rocked by ethics and staffing rows, riots, and falling poll ratings. The return of Donald Trump complicated matters further. Change might be on the way. Ask any department how a major project is going, and the chances are you’ll be told it’s due in “spring.” Whitehall officials often buy time by using astronomical spring (which ends on June 21), not meteorological spring (May 31). And that means a glut of announcements is likely to be bunched up around June — if, of course, they aren’t delayed again. Downing Street chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is antsy — and has lately been looking for ways to paint Labour as “insurgents.” McSweeney recently briefed Labour MPs that there are three things on his mind: defense spending, a center-left vision for AI and tech, and radically reforming the state, one person familiar with the conversation told POLITICO.  Starmer is meanwhile setting his sights on rewiring Britain’s institutions. Reforms of planning rules to spur more building were spelt out this week; the welfare system next week. Starmer will say Thursday that the state has become bigger but weaker thanks to a “cottage industry of checkers and blockers slowing down delivery.” Both men know the clock is ticking down to the next election in 2029.  One business lobbyist, who like other people spoken to for this article was granted anonymity to speak frankly, said: “In order to have its impact at the end of the parliamentary term, this is when the rubber has to hit the road. ” A union official was more blunt: “People don’t know what the government is trying to achieve. They don’t have a story to tell.” POLITICO takes stock of the biggest things coming up that could define Starmer’s government. SPENDING REVIEW The defining moment will be Rachel Reeves’ review of three years of future government spending, expected around June. The chancellor will preview her thinking in her spring statement on March 26, revealing crucial economic forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility watchdog (OBR). After years of chopping and changing under the Conservatives, Reeves once insisted this would not be a “major” fiscal event — yet it’s now widely expected to pave the way for Whitehall spending cuts as the OBR restricts her economic headroom under her self-imposed fiscal rules. A 10-year plan for the NHS is also expected in spring, but protecting health service funding could lead to more cuts elsewhere. The key question will be whether Reeves’ “envelope” for public service spending rises holds steady at 1.3 percent per year, according to Paul Johnson. The director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a nonpartisan think tank, said the spending review will be a “huge moment” with “pretty big rows” if the envelope is reduced further, even if “all of history suggests that those numbers will get topped up later on.” The wider question is how and when Britain’s anaemic growth will pick up. For this, Reeves is relying on many reforms that either sit outside her budget or are not “scored” by the OBR.  Johnson said: “My sense is that they’re beginning to understand the scale of the task, how difficult some of the trade-offs are going to be, how difficult it is to change some of the planning things and so on … It’s been clear for some time that they weren’t desperately well prepared at the moment that they came into office, and to some extent, the first period has been a very fast learning curve.” INDUSTRY AND TRADE The government’s industrial strategy, trade strategy and small business strategy are all due roughly around June, one person familiar with the plans told POLITICO. Businesses will be invited into the Department of Business and Trade in the coming weeks for a deep-dive to draw up the small business plans, an industry figure said. An update sent to consultees on the industrial strategy Wednesday said “detailed policy design” is now under way on regulation, skills and access to talent, along with the role of public finance institutions. Publication — delayed from earlier in the year — will be aligned with the spending review. It is focused on eight “growth-driving” sectors including defense, financial services and advanced manufacturing over the next decade. A “Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy” is also due in spring. But looming over all these plans are U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports to the U.S., including steel and aluminum — which took effect Wednesday despite last-ditch attempts from Britain to secure a carve-out. The U.K. is still in talks to try to avoid broader U.S. tariffs from April 2. Trump has said a deal offered by Britain on tech and AI could avoid tariffs, but this is only expected later in the year, and he has not spelt out how. DEFENSE REVIEW The government’s strategic defense review is due to report back in the first half of 2025. One U.K. official said it remains on track despite Trump upending much of the global order with his push for a peace deal in Ukraine. Led by former NATO Secretary General George Robertson, it is looking at military capabilities, threats and “modernizing” the armed forces. An “integrated review” was published only in 2021 but had to be “refreshed” in 2023 as the world order changed. The official quoted above said that most of the work on identifying threats was complete by late February, when Starmer announced a path to spending 2.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2027. Robertson’s team has been in the Ministry of Defence in recent weeks, and Starmer’s announcement will help it nail down the rest of the review. The review could also include some findings from a separate look at the AUKUS submarine-building pact between the U.K., U.S. and Australia, by former National Security Adviser Stephen Lovegrove. It was delivered late to ministers in December and officials believe much of it will be kept confidential. CHINA A delayed “China audit” of London-Beijing relations across government is due in the spring too. But officials say the Treasury and Foreign Office have been at loggerheads over its focus, which has broadened from defense and security to the search for economic growth. Downing Street aides insist the tension between these two goals can be held in balance. But it will be tested hard when Starmer visits China, a trip that is being planned for later this year. Meanwhile officials say the audit is still being drafted. This tension is highlighted by the continuing silence on whether the Chinese state will be included on the enhanced tier of Britain’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, a lobbying rules shakeup which will require people in the U.K. to register work they do for foreign entities. The Sun newspaper reported earlier this month that China will not be in the enhanced tier. Two U.K. officials told POLITICO it was likely that, while individual Chinese companies or individuals could end up in the enhanced tier, the Chinese state as a whole would not be. U.K. and U.S. officials also expect a deal to hand British sovereignty of the Chagos Islands — a militarily strategic archipelago in the Indian Ocean — to Mauritius will be agreed soon. But a treaty could take up to a year to pass through the U.K. parliament. Expect heated rows over how much Britain will pay to lease back the joint U.S.-U.K. Diego Garcia air base for 99 years. WELFARE BENEFITS Reeves and Starmer plan to cut Britain’s ballooning benefits bill, particularly for sick and disabled people. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is expected to publish a green paper early next week. A person with knowledge of the plan said it will likely start a consultation on changing the “work capability assessment” (WCA) for sick and disabled people, which could take effect as soon as September, and announce other measures more quickly. Freezing the disability benefit Personal Independence Payment is one option on the table, as is tightening up “conditionality” for people who fail to meet conditions for claiming other benefits. While Labour MPs mostly back reforming benefits, many baulk at slashing support for disabled people, and privately believe the plans are driven by Treasury cost-cutting. Plans for Kendall to unveil the cuts in a Commons statement this week were delayed and No. 10 officials instead engaged with worried MPs. But one official said the overall figure of £5 billion to £6 billion a year in welfare savings is unlikely to change. They added WCA reform would likely only be “scored” in the summer spending review, while other measures such as a PIP freeze could be scored in the spring statement. TWO-CHILD LIMIT The government’s child poverty taskforce, led by ministers, is expected to produce an “action plan” around June — and has revived internal Labour pressure on Reeves to scrap or modify the two-child limit on benefits, brought in by the Conservatives but kept by Labour. This will give a sharp focus to the welfare reform debate. One Labour MP said Treasury and DWP officials are “talking at cross purposes,” adding: “I think the Treasury is invested in the cuts and DWP is invested in getting back to work. For f*ck’s sake, they briefed against Liz Kendall in the papers … because she was saying this is about getting people back to work, and they were saying no, this is about cutting the benefits bill. Those things are similar but they are not the same.” One union official described the coming economic statements as “for the financial markets, not the public” and warned that Reeves’ cuts and gloom — after limiting winter fuel payments for the elderly — could cast her in the same light as former Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher, who was dubbed “milk snatcher.” IMMIGRATION AND EU The Home Office is due to publish an immigration white paper in spring, adding meat to Starmer’s promise to cut legal net migration into the U.K. Visas, fees, and rules for international students and their dependents are all in scope. This will see the reality of skills shortages butt up against the Home Office’s political desire to see numbers fall. Labour officials have always said they are focused on improving skills and training — and migration crackdowns inherited from the previous Tory government mean numbers are already likely to fall. But the public will expect to see results fast. Aides will also be braced for press coverage of the usual summer rise in small boat crossings of the English Channel. What will happen to the EU’s repeated calls for a “youth mobility” scheme — allowing young people to live and work for a set time period in the U.K. — remains a mystery. Starmer has promised to “reset” the U.K.-EU relationship and has not ruled out a youth mobility scheme, but refuses to be drawn on any details. Youth mobility has been raised by the EU repeatedly in private talks with the U.K. for months, a person with knowledge of them confirmed. EU officials including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will kickstart the high-level conversation at a U.K.-EU summit on May 19. Meanwhile other thorny post-Brexit talks are still going. The “Windsor Framework,” governing goods movements between Northern Ireland and Britain, is due to take force fully on March 31. And officials expect long-stuck talks over the status of Gibraltar, a British overseas territory, to resume soon between the U.K., Gibraltar, Spain and the EU. CRIME AND JUSTICE Also due in “spring” — a.k.a. before June 21 — is the final report of a review of sentencing policy by former Tory Justice Secretary David Gauke. His interim findings said political bids by successive governments to sound “tough on crime” had brought the justice system to the brink of collapse. It will be a balancing act for a government that wants to sound tough while also putting reformers round its table. The Home Office is preparing a white paper on policing reforms, which will take forensics labs and IT capabilities out of individual regions and pool them centrally to “drive efficiency,” but it is now expected in the summer rather than the spring. And a so-called “Hillsborough Law” — named for the 1989 football stadium crush that killed 97 people — imposing a legal duty of candor on public bodies is expected to be introduced before April 15, the anniversary of the disaster. One government official suggested it may reduce the need for statutory inquiries into future disasters because it will be easier to compel public bodies to cooperate with investigations. LOCAL ELECTIONS Elections will be held on May 1 for 24 of England’s 317 councils; a tally that would have been bigger if not for delays caused by a reorganization of local government. It will be Starmer’s first test as prime minister after falling poll ratings, but these seats were last elected in 2021, a low point for Labour. Pundits may look more closely at the performance of Nigel Farage’s upstart party Reform UK. Tory and Labour strategists will already have an eye on the election for a mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. Defector Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory MP, is running for Reform on an anti-net-zero ticket and one Conservative MP predicted she could win. Westminster will also watch a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, where Labour MP Mike Amesbury is resigning after he was handed a suspended prison sentence for punching a constituent. The by-election can be held on April 17 at the earliest, but may coincide with May 1, and Reform’s performance will be watched closely. A second Labour MP said that while colleagues are fiercely loyal now, “the sh*t could hit the fan after the local elections” and “people will start to panic” if Reform and the left-wing Green Party make gains at the expense of Labour. They said some Labour MPs are already keeping a close eye on seat-by-seat “MRP” polls that predict they will be gone in 2029. ASSISTED DYING Backbench Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s bill to legalize assisted dying has become a point of furious debate as it trudges through the slow process of becoming law. While not officially supported by the government, Starmer has voted in favor of the principle. Supporters expect the committee stage to be complete by parliament’s easter recess, meaning a final vote of MPs before the bill goes to the House of Lords would happen some time in May or June. The general expectation is that MPs will vote on the bill again on one of the Commons’ first few sitting Fridays after Easter recess — April 25, May 16 and June 13 and 20. It would take at least two sitting Fridays before it can be dispatched to the Lords, where it will face more grinding debate. The question will be whether the “magic number” of 28 MPs switch sides from pro to anti, blocking the bill before it can clear the Commons. AND THE REST …  Many thorny problems will remain unresolved long after June. There is still no agreed plan for the restoration of the crumbling Palace of Westminster, the seat of the U.K. parliament. MPs are due to have fresh options and indicative budgets put to them later this year, but few see Reeves approving billions of pounds of spending. Eyes within the government are already turning to Starmer’s next king’s speech, the moment when another year’s worth of policy will be announced. Aides typically refuse to say when it will be held, but July or early autumn would not be unexpected. And there are whispers — naturally unconfirmed — about whether the PM will carry out a ministerial reshuffle later this spring or summer. Those on Labour’s “soft left” worry about the future of their few remaining advocates, including Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. No. 10 refused to comment on reshuffle rumors. Perhaps Starmer would be wise to hold back — if nothing else, for the sake of party unity. “Once it’s done, people who have been loyal will know whether they’re getting promoted,” said a third MP. “If I were them I’d delay the reshuffle forever.”

BRUSSELS — I scratch your back, you scratch mine. That’s the strategy of the European Parliament’s right wingers as lawmakers prepare to vote on six of Brussels’ highest ranking officials. As the grand finale of the commissioner hearings approaches, the first 20 sessions have been much smoother than in previous years. That’s in large part because the hard-right European Conservatives and Reformists, led by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Poland’s Law and Justice party, have decided play ball by helping the other factions out — in hopes of a smooth run for their pick, Raffaele Fitto. The ECR group in the Parliament has backed 19 out of 20 commissioner nominees in last week’s hearings. The only nominee the group didn’t fully endorse was Belgium’s Hadja Lahbib, who passed anyway. Because of the mathematics of Parliament majorities, other political groups have required the support of the ECR to get their own commissioner candidates through. The same applies to the six executive vice presidents whose hearings are on Tuesday. This has paved the way for an informal truce among political families. Few want to disrupt a rival political family’s progress for fear of retaliation. An ECR official told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook it shows their group is now part of the “operational majority” in Parliament. “Without the ECR there was no two-thirds majority” for any commissioner, the official stated. Two ECR staffers said the constructive approach is also part of a diplomatic strategy to minimize obstacles for the only nominee who hails from the ECR’s political family: Italy’s controversial pick, Fitto. The Italian has been nominated for the cohesion and reform portfolio. The ECR isn’t shouting about this strategy from the rooftops. The group hasn’t published anything about how it’s been voting on commissioners, and a spokesperson didn’t reply to requests for comment. Bar a hiccup for Hungary’s commissioner nominee Olivér Várhelyi, the typically politically fraught process has been bloodless so far, and the lion’s share of the 26 nominees (one from each European Union country save for Germany which nominated the institution’s president) passing easily, even if with poor performances. ECR lawmakers even backed Poland’s Piotr Serafin, despite him having been nominated by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — a top nemesis of the ECR’s main national delegation. Few expected ECR to play ball to such a degree — especially since so many of the commissioners hail from rival political families. The Socialists’ candidates are Spain’s Teresa Ribera, who is aiming for the top competition and climate job, and Roxana Mînzatu, who will oversee social policies; the liberals’ candidates are the next EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, nominated by Estonia, and internal market czar Stéphane Séjourné, nominated by France. And the center-right Finn Henna Virkkunen is angling for the role of tech supremo. But not all of the Parliament’s factions are responding favorably to ECR’s attempts to play nice. Some in the Social Democrats (S&D), Renew and the Greens want Fitto demoted from the role of executive vice president to a so-called “regular” commissioner, meaning he would have less power and no commissioners reporting to him in the next College. They argue that letting ECR into the Commission’s leadership is a breach of the cordon sanitaire and does not respect the coalition who voted for von der Leyen — which did not include Meloni’s group. In the outgoing European Commission, Poland’s commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski was nominated by an ECR government, however he was a much less powerful commissioner than Fitto promises to be. The number of vice presidents of the European Parliament from the ECR has doubled to two after June’s European election, which saw a power reshuffle of the Parliament’s 720 Members of the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the French S&D delegation has gone as far as to threaten voting against the Commission as a whole in November’s plenary session if Fitto maintains his title and responsibilities.

Hungary has proposed a new draft law that it hopes will resolve its ongoing dispute around Erasmus student exchanges with Brussels by banning ministers, MPs and mayors from top positions in public university. Budapest hopes the move will allow the affected universities to regain Erasmus and Horizon funding, with one top politician announcing Wednesday he’s stepping down to “help the government successfully negotiate with the European Union” to resolve the issue. As POLITICO reported in early 2023, 21 Hungarian universities were blocked from signing new EU grants because they were in the hands of public trusts filled with people from Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party.  When the news broke, all the ministers who held positions in the trusts resigned from their university posts, but other ruling party politicians stayed on. The bill, which was published Tuesday and has now been submitted for public consultation, would prevent them from serving on the boards in the hope of reaching an agreement with the EU. However, the Ministry of Culture and Innovation, which oversees higher education, isn’t convinced the law will do the trick, even if it’s passed. The ministry admitted that it hadn’t yet reached an agreement with the European Commission and that the current draft law simply articulates a compromise that Brussels has already indicated is insufficient — but they’re going with it anyway. “Despite the government’s openness and initiatives,” the European Commission “has refused to act on the matter for almost a year,” the ministry said in a statement. Tibor Navracsics, the minister who led earlier negotiations with the Commission, told the Polish news agency PAP in January 2024 that the negotiations had reached a “dead end” and claimed that the European Parliament was blackmailing the Commission to reach a consensus on the issue.  Commission spokesman Balázs Ujvári confirmed in September that the situation had not changed, but “we have made our position very clear to the Hungarian government,” they have had several discussions and “they know what we expect.” September marked the beginning of the first academic year in which students from Hungarian public foundation universities could no longer participate in Erasmus student exchanges. However, the ban had already led to complaints in 2023 about the loss of millions of euros for universities: although they were not excluded from Horizon Europe research partnerships, they could only participate in them without EU funding.