EU should consider Hungarian stand when deciding on funding suspension

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has sent a "friendly, polite" letter to the European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and European Council Chairman Herman Van Rompuy requesting that Hungary's stand be taken into consideration when EU finance ministers take a decision on a proposal to suspend €150 billion in Cohesion Fund allocations at a meeting on March 13, daily Népszabadság said on Thursday, citing a copy of the letter that it obtained.
In the letter, dated March 6, Orbán confirmed the government's commitment to bringing the general government deficit to a level in line with EU expectations. He noted that the government had announced further fiscal adjustments equivalent to 0.4% of GDP on February 9.
Orbán said in the letter that, while the government was only able to control the gap with extraordinary measures in 2011 and 2012, structural measures would do the same in 2013.
The Commission proposed in February the suspension of €495 million of Cohesion Fund allocations for Hungary for 2013 because of the country's failure to address its excessive deficit.
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