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GOVT OFFICIAL CALLS ON BRUSSELS TO INCREASE INNOVATION FUNDING FOR LATECOMER STATES

The state secretary of the information and technology ministry on Friday called for a tenfold increase in European Union innovation funding for states that joined the EU at a later date. Speaking on the sidelines of a two-day meeting of the EU’s Competitiveness Council, László György told MTI that the EU’s cohesion policy finances “vertical relations” between the 15 countries that first joined the bloc and the latecomers. Cohesion policy should strive to create equally developed states instead of today’s economy based on a hierarchy of “superior and inferior” states, he said. Hungary wants true convergence while the western states want to monopolise innovation funds and cut cohesion funding, György insisted. Hungary is for maintaining the current level of cohesion funds and the proportionate sharing of common resources, he said.