Olli Rehn, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary affairs, has announced that Hungary's forecast budget deficits for 2012 and 2013 exceeded the EU's 3% threshold. As a result, Hungary could face a suspension of EU funding from January 2013 onwards. Hungary was among five countries instructed to take action by the Commission in November to correct their excessive deficits. Belgium, Cyprus, Malta and Poland have “taken effective action” but Hungary's measures are insufficient to correct the deficit in a “sustainable and credible manner” according to Commissioner Rehn.

Hungary has been in excessive deficit since its accession to the European Union in 2004 and the deadline for correcting the excessive deficit has been pushed back twice, by three years in total.

The Commission's actions are on foot of economic governance policy introduced to aid sustainable economic growth and job creation within the EU. According to Commissioners Rehn “our member States are very vulnerable to the financial turbulence that erupted in 2008 largely because of insufficiently prudent fiscal policies and wide macroeconomic imbalances of the past.”