BUDAPEST: The European Commission is very likely to propose that EU finance ministers remove Hungary from the bloc's list of fiscal offenders next month, web site Bruxinfo.hu reported on Friday, citing several unnamed sources.
The Commission's economic and monetary affairs spokesman Simon O'Connor said he would not comment until May 29.
That is when the Commission considers whether Hungary should remain on the list, which it has been on since it joined the bloc in 2004. The finance ministers are due to meet on June 21.
Exiting the European Union's Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) would be a big political victory for Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
He says his government has saved Hungary from financial collapse by cutting the budget deficit after years of economic mismanagement under previous governments.
But he has angered Western partners with unconventional economic policies, including setting the EU's highest bank tax and windfall taxes on the retail, telecoms and energy sectors, and legal changes that Brussels and Washington have said could weaken the country's democratic safeguards.
Orban, who has in turn accused the EU of using double standards with regard to Hungary, faces elections next year.
He said earlier this month that the government would adopt new fiscal measures to ensure the country's deficit stayed below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013 and 2014.
Orban told a Brussels news conference earlier this week that, "based on mathematical calculations", Hungary should be removed from the EDP list.
Hungary's forint rose on the Bruxinfo report on Friday, currency dealers said, trading at 289.80 versus the euro at 0918 GMT from an opening level of 291.47. Government bond yields fell around 8 basis points.
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