Hungary denies EU executive seeks legal changes to protect stimulus spending

BRUSSELS: Hungary denied on Tuesday that the European Union's executive asked it to reform its public procurement laws to improve competition and avoid fraud once billions of euros from the bloc's new pandemic recovery fund are made available.

Reuters reported on Monday that the European Commission has sought the changes as the bloc's 27 member states negotiate their spending plans before 750 billion euros of EU stimulus start flowing later this year to kickstart growth.

"Fake news that European Commission requested Hungary to amend public procurement laws: The government did not receive any kind of request from the European Commission, neither official nor informal," Hungarian government spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, said on Twitter.

He added Budapest was asking the Commission to "deny these groundless claims".

An internal Commission document, which was seen by Reuters, said the Brussels-based executive - in charge of managing the record new spending - blamed "political opposition at the highest level" in Hungary for failing to overhaul the law it said had led to "systemic" irregularities and overpricing.

The EU's anti-fraud agency OLAF said last year that Hungary had irregularities in nearly 4% of its spending of the bloc's funds in 2015-2019, by far the highest rate among member states.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban disputed the OLAF findings, telling Reuters in an interview last September: "I don't accept the point that Hungary is more corrupt than Austria or Germany or Denmark."