"It would be fair if, in this extraordinary situation, EU rules would not account a country's defence expenditures as part of the Maastricht deficit," Varga said, posting from the Ecofin meeting in Santiago de Compostela.

He argued that Hungary's spending on defense had reached an annual 2% of GDP, while the country had spent over HUF 650 billion to protect its border from illegal migration since 2015.