(ANSA-AFP) - BRUSSELS, SEP 18 - The EU said on Wednesday it
was moving to withhold 200 million euros ($222 million)
earmarked for Hungary, after Budapest failed to pay an
equivalent fine for violating asylum rules. In June, the
European Court of Justice slapped Hungary with the
multi-million-euro fine and imposed an additional daily
one-million-euro penalty for failing to comply with a 2020
ruling on upholding international procedures for asylum-seekers.
The government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is
frequently at loggerheads with Brussels, had made it clear it
was not going to pay, describing the sanction as "unfair". A
deadline to settle the penalty expired on Tuesday. "That means
that the commission is in accordance to the applicable rules
moving to what we call the offsetting procedure," European
Commission spokesman Balazs Ujvari told journalists. (ANSA-AFP).
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