The ratification of an agreement reached at a EU summit on the next EU budget and recovery fund is the next „difficult obstacle”, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at a joint press conference with Mateusz Morawiecki.

„We have reached our targets,” Mr Orban said, adding that he could not remember any negotiations „as tense and strong” as those on Thursday at any time during his 30-year political career.

„[German Chancellor] Angela Merkel said clearly that this is only one step, there is still one more difficult obstacle, and this is the ratification of that agreement by the national parliaments,” he said.

MTI learnt that a provision included in the agreement reached by the heads of the 27 member states on Thursday allows a rule of law mechanism to be triggered only if a member state’s measures violate the EU’s financial interests.

„If anybody would like to criticise or accuse us or to trigger a mechanism like that must identify a concrete breach of certain financial regulations. This mechanism we have created today cannot be used for political targets,” Mr Orban said.

„We could say, modestly, of course, that we saved the unity of the Union,” he said.

„Don’t forget that this dispute was not only about the rule of law…and financial issues, it was about the future of the European Union. And the question was: what is the power centre of the European Union? The European institutions, like the Parliament or the Commission, or the member states? And today we delivered evidences that the European Union is nothing else, just the community and alliance of the nations and the states, and nobody can circumvent the intentions and the will of the elected governments of any nation, neither the European Parliament nor the Commission,” he said.

Mr Orban acknowledged Mr Morawiecki’s leadership of the Visegrad Group at the talks in Brussels on Thursday as well as at a marathon summit in July.

„I always love to fight on the side of the Polish,” he said.

Mr Morawiecki also thanked Mr Orban.

„I’m going to thank you, because we fight for our rights, we fight for clarity, we fight for certainty of law and we fight for the Treaties so that they are not circumvented by secondary law. And all this was possible thanks to our cooperation, thanks to our cooperation within the Visegrad Group, and with Hungary and with Viktor in particular,” he said.