The European Commission has today proposed the Council to grant an additional €147 million in financial assistance to Hungary under the SURE instrument, bringing their total support to €651 million. SURE is a crucial element of the EU's comprehensive strategy to protect jobs and workers in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Once the Council approves this proposal, the financial assistance will be provided in the form of loans granted on favourable terms. They will assist Hungary in covering the costs related to a new self-employed income support scheme and an extension of tax reliefs provided to companies to keep people employed, introduced in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Hungary is the 7th Member State, together with Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta, to ask for additional assistance this year on top of the support that the Council had already approved in 2020. Today's proposal brings overall financial support proposed by the Commission under SURE to a total of €94.4 billion. The Commission has already disbursed €89.6 billion to 19 Member States under this mechanism, and it expects to undertake the remaining borrowing operations in 2022. SURE can still offer €5.6 billion of financial assistance and Member States can still submit requests for support. (For more information: Veerle Nuyts – Tel.: +32 229 96302; Andrea Masini - Tel.: +32 229 91519)
21 december 2021