Govt spox: EU institutions 'operationalizing financial blackmail, political retribution'

European Union institutions are using "financial blackmail" and "political retribution" against member states that refuse to take in migrants, Zoltan Kovacs, the state secretary for international communications, said on Twitter on Thursday. The state secretary reacted to a tweet by Project Syndicate, citing US financier George Soros as saying that Hungary and Poland's veto of the EU's next multi-year budget and post-pandemic recovery package "directly threatens the rule of law - and thus the bloc's future". Referring to the "Soros plan", Kovacs cited Soros as suggesting in 2015 that countries refusing to take in migrants should be subjected to financial penalties. "Today we see financial blackmailing and political retribution operationalized by EU institutions," he said.