The European Parliament’s debate on Monday, October 5th, comes at an awkward moment for Brussels. After years of confrontation with Viktor Orbán, the European Commission now believes Hungary has done enough to justify releasing €4.2 billion in cohesion funding and restoring full access to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.

The question before MEPs is therefore deceptively simple: have the conditions really been met, or has Brussels simply found a convenient political moment to declare victory?

The answer matters well beyond Hungary. The original dispute was not some abstract quarrel over Brussels etiquette. In 2022, the EU suspended €6.3 billion in Hungarian cohesion funding after identifying deficiencies in public procurement, conflicts of interest, corruption controls and the effectiveness of prosecutorial action. The conditionality mechanism was deliberately designed to make access to EU taxpayers’ money dependent upon safeguards for the rule of law and the protection of the EU budget.

That principle is important. If membership of the EU means anything, it cannot mean that governments receive billions regardless of whether public money is properly administered.

But Hungary has changed politically. Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule ended with Péter Magyar’s decisive election victory in April. Magyar campaigned partly on repairing Hungary’s relationship with Brussels and unlocking the billions frozen during the Orbán years. His government subsequently notified the Commission that it had implemented the required reforms.

The Commission has now accepted that argument — albeit partially. Its September 23rd proposal says Hungary has addressed the rule-of-law breaches affecting the EU budget, citing improvements in public procurement, the anti-corruption framework, prevention of conflicts of interest and prosecutorial effectiveness. If the Council approves the proposal, €4.2 billion in cohesion commitments will be reinstated and Hungarian students and researchers will regain full access to Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe.

That is a substantial political prize for Magyar, and a substantial test for the EU.

The danger for Brussels is obvious. Having spent years insisting that European money must not subsidise corruption or institutional capture, the Commission cannot now appear to have changed the rules simply because a more congenial government has arrived in Budapest.

There is, however, an equally serious danger on the other side. If Hungary has genuinely implemented the reforms demanded by Brussels, continuing to withhold money would make the conditionality mechanism look less like a defence of European values and more like a political punishment system. That would be profoundly damaging. Rules that apply only to governments Brussels likes are not rules at all.

This is why Monday’s debate matters – and the €4.2 billion is only part of the story.

The Commission has made clear that other Hungarian funds remain blocked. Around €3.5 billion is affected by a separate mechanism, including approximately €2.7 billion linked to horizontal conditions concerning the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, including academic freedom, LGBTI rights and asylum.

Meanwhile, Hungary is still seeking access to roughly €10 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility. The new Hungarian recovery plan includes measures on anti-corruption, public procurement, transparency, judicial independence and stakeholder participation, with payments tied to the achievement of specific milestones.

So this is not a clean victory for either side.

For Magyar, the release of €4.2 billion demonstrates that his strategy of accommodation with Brussels is delivering tangible results. For the Commission, it provides an opportunity to demonstrate that conditionality can work: reforms are made, the Commission verifies them, and money is released.

But the real test will come afterwards. Brussels must monitor whether the reforms survive political pressure. Anti-corruption bodies must remain genuinely independent. Public procurement must be transparent. Prosecutorial safeguards must work in practice rather than merely on paper. And the judiciary must be capable of challenging the government when necessary.

That is where the European Parliament should concentrate its fire. The temptation will be to turn Monday’s debate into another referendum on Viktor Orbán. That would be yesterday’s argument. Orbán has gone. The more important question is whether Hungary’s new government has actually dismantled the machinery that generated the dispute.

There is a wider lesson here for the European Union.

Conditionality can only work if Brussels is prepared both to withhold money when standards are breached and to release it when standards are met. Anything else undermines the credibility of the entire system.

The Commission says Hungary has crossed that threshold. The Council must now decide whether it agrees.

MEPs should therefore resist both triumphalism and cynicism, if the reforms are real, Hungary should get its money.

If they are cosmetic, Brussels should keep the cheque in the drawer.

Brussels Moves to Release €4.2bn to Hungary as Magyar Unwinds Orbán-Era Dispute

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has ruled out an agreement requiring Athens to recognise British Museum ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures, using a landmark exchange of cultural objects with Bulgaria to restate Greece’s position.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said Greece will not “borrow” the Parthenon Sculptures under an arrangement requiring Athens to recognise British Museum ownership, as Greece and Bulgaria completed an exchange of historic remains and religious artefacts following decades of negotiations.

Mitsotakis made the remarks on Saturday, 3 October, during a ceremony at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki attended by Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev.

Under the agreement, Greece transferred to Bulgaria human remains identified as those of medieval Bulgarian ruler Tsar Samuel, together with material recovered from four sarcophagi at the Basilica of Saint Achilleios in the Prespa region.

Bulgaria returned 48 ecclesiastical objects removed from northern Greece during the First World War.

The Greek prime minister’s office said the returned objects include icons, crosses, vestments, reliquaries and an episcopal throne. They were removed in 1917 from religious institutions in the Serres region.

The artefacts will initially be displayed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture before being returned to the monasteries and church authorities from which they originated. The Greek government said the 48 objects will remain on display until 5 November.

The remains handed to Bulgaria were discovered during archaeological excavations at Saint Achilleios in the 1960s and later identified as belonging to Samuel, who ruled the First Bulgarian Empire between 997 and 1014.

Bulgaria organised a state ceremony following their return. The Bulgarian government described the transfer as the return of one of the country’s most significant medieval rulers.

The exchange concludes negotiations stretching back decades, although both governments have agreed to continue discussions about other objects of mutual historical interest.

Mitsotakis used the Thessaloniki ceremony to link the agreement to another, far more prominent dispute over cultural property: the Parthenon Sculptures held in London.

He said cultural diplomacy had demonstrated that disputes over objects removed during earlier periods of conflict could be addressed through negotiation, referring also to previous arrangements involving fragments of the Parthenon returned from Sicily.

The Greek government continues to seek the reunification in Athens of the surviving Parthenon Sculptures.

The central obstacle remains ownership.

The British Museum states that Lord Elgin removed the sculptures between 1801 and 1805 with the permission of the Ottoman authorities then governing Athens. His actions were examined by a parliamentary committee before the collection was acquired for the museum in 1816.

Greece disputes the legitimacy of their removal and argues that surviving elements of the monument should be reunited at the Acropolis Museum.

That difference has direct consequences for any proposal based on loans.

Under the British Museum trustees’ published position, the museum is prepared to consider lending objects from its collection, including the Parthenon Sculptures, but requires a borrowing institution to acknowledge the museum’s ownership.

Successive Greek governments have refused to meet that condition.

Mitsotakis reiterated that position on Saturday, arguing that Greece cannot borrow an object which it considers its own.

The dispute has continued despite negotiations between Athens and the British Museum.

In February, the UK government told Parliament that the chairman of the British Museum remained in discussions with the Greek government over a possible partnership involving reciprocal loans.

The British government has maintained that operational decisions concerning the sculptures belong to the museum’s trustees.

EU Today has followed the dispute for several years. In 2023, then British prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a scheduled meeting with Mitsotakis after the Greek leader publicly raised the return of the sculptures.

The dispute subsequently produced an unusual diplomatic argument between two NATO allies, although discussions between Greek representatives and the British Museum continued.

The Greece-Bulgaria agreement concluded on Saturday differs substantially from the Parthenon case in both its legal history and the circumstances under which the objects were removed.

Athens nevertheless sees the exchange as evidence that governments can settle disputes over cultural property without abandoning their respective interpretations of history.

For Bulgaria, the return of Samuel’s remains has considerable national significance. For Greece, the recovery of the ecclesiastical objects resolves a century-old question concerning material removed during the First World War.

The Parthenon Sculptures remain considerably more complicated.

Talks continue, but the fundamental disagreement identified again by Mitsotakis in Thessaloniki has not changed: London considers the sculptures legally owned by the British Museum, while Athens considers them parts of a Greek monument which should be permanently reunited.

As long as that difference remains, a conventional loan arrangement offers no straightforward solution.

Beijing has opened an anti-dumping investigation into a chemical imported from the European Union days before EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič travels to China for talks covering trade imbalances, market access and strategic raw materials.

China has opened a new anti-dumping investigation into imports from the European Union less than a week before EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is due in Beijing for talks on the increasingly difficult trade relationship between the two sides.

China’s Ministry of Commerce announced on Saturday, 3 October, that it was beginning an investigation into p-nitrotoluene, also known as 4-nitrotoluene, imported from the EU.

According to the official notice opening the investigation, the case follows an application submitted on 14 September by Chinese producers Jiangsu Huaihe Chemical and Hubei Dongfang Chemical. The investigation will examine alleged dumping between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026, while the assessment of possible damage to Chinese industry will cover January 2022 to June 2026.

P-nitrotoluene is used in the production of dyes, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, pigments and other chemical products.

In isolation, the investigation concerns a relatively specialised industrial product. Its timing, however, places it inside a much wider argument over the future of EU-China trade.

Šefčovič is expected in China on 8 and 9 October for the second high-level meeting under the EU-China trade and investment consultation mechanism established earlier this year.

The European Commission confirmed in September that the meeting would address Chinese exports to the EU, European access to the Chinese market and restrictions affecting rare-earth supplies. Brussels said it expected the October talks to produce the first concrete results from work undertaken since the mechanism was established. The Commission outlined the agenda following a September call between Šefčovič and Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao.

EU Today reported in September that Šefčovič had warned China that the EU could consider tougher measures if the negotiations failed to produce tangible progress by October.

The deadline followed talks between Šefčovič and Wang in Brussels in June. At the time, the two sides agreed to establish working groups dealing with trade and investment balances, export controls, intellectual property and World Trade Organisation reform.

EU Today examined those negotiations in detail as Brussels sought progress on rare earths, market access and the widening trade imbalance.

The numbers remain a central part of the European argument.

According to Eurostat’s figures for EU-China trade in 2025, the EU imported €559.4 billion in goods from China while exporting €199.6 billion, leaving a trade deficit of €359.8 billion. EU exports to China fell by 6.5 per cent compared with 2024, while imports increased by 6.4 per cent.

Brussels argues that the imbalance cannot be viewed separately from questions of industrial subsidies, excess manufacturing capacity and barriers encountered by European companies seeking access to the Chinese market.

Beijing rejects the suggestion that the growth of Chinese exports is principally the result of unfair state support and has criticised the EU’s expanding use of trade-defence instruments.

The confrontation now covers a growing range of industries.

The EU has imposed additional duties on Chinese electric vehicles following an anti-subsidy investigation, while disputes have extended to medical devices, public procurement and agricultural products. China, meanwhile, has launched investigations affecting European products including brandy, pork, dairy goods and chemicals.

Rare earths have become particularly important.

European industry remains heavily dependent on Chinese supplies and processing capacity for materials used in permanent magnets, electric vehicles, wind turbines, electronics and defence equipment.

Eurostat reported in June that China supplied 46.8 per cent of EU rare-earth imports by weight in 2025. The concentration is greater in some processing stages and manufactured components.

EU Today has followed the issue closely, including the Commission’s preparations for possible renewed Chinese rare-earth restrictions and the EU Today Research Desk’s assessment of Europe’s exposure to Chinese rare-earth supply chains.

Following the June negotiations, Šefčovič said China had given assurances that export controls on rare earths and permanent magnets should not interrupt European supply chains. He nevertheless sought improvements to the licensing system faced by EU companies. The Commissioner said at the time that Beijing would be expected to demonstrate tangible progress by October.

That point has now arrived.

Neither Brussels nor Beijing has indicated that the broader commercial relationship is heading towards disengagement. China remains the EU’s largest source of imported goods and the European market remains commercially important to Chinese exporters.

But both sides are increasingly prepared to use trade-defence measures when negotiations fail to resolve disputes.

Saturday’s anti-dumping investigation consequently adds another issue to Šefčovič’s agenda days before he arrives in Beijing — and provides an early indication of the atmosphere surrounding the October talks.

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