János Bóka, the minister in charge of European Union affairs, said he did not "pin great hopes on the European Commission's activities in the upcoming institutional cycle" either in terms of the conflicts between the EC and Hungary or in terms of the challenges facing the European Union.
Bóka told the Hungarian press that he had visited the European Commission on the second working day of the new administration in order to learn about the body's opinion on the current challenges.
Bóka said he had met the commissioners with whom he would maintain intensive working relations in the upcoming period, including Budget, Anti-Fraud and Public Administration Commissioner Piotr Serafin, Democracy and Rule of Law Commissioner Michael McGrath, Magnus Brunner, the Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration, Culture and Education Commissioner Roxana Minzatu, and Oliver Varhelyi, the Commissioner for Health and Animal Welfare.
The EU affairs minister said that despite the personal changes at the EC, the body enjoyed the support of the same political coalition as it had in the past five years.
Bóka said that during the talks he had conveyed the message of the Hungarian presidency and the Hungarian government that EU institutions and decisive EU policies must change.
He added that he had also discussed issues affecting Hungary, such as the conditionality regulation for the protection of the EU budget, access to the Erasmus and Horizon programmes, and the implementation of the European Court of Justice ruling on migration issues. Bóka said most Commissioners had voiced the same messages as before, adding that the EC continued to try to use the proceedings for political purposes.
"The only method to break out from these spirals of blackmail is by enforcing political interests," he said. "The Hungarian government will use those tools," he added.