(Bloomberg) -- Hungary will use its own budget to temporarily replace European Union aid withheld due to a dispute over democratic standards, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Saturday.
An EU Court of Justice decision this week affirmed the bloc's right to deploy tough new powers that could deny Poland and Hungary billions of euros of funding for allegedly violating its norms.
Read full story on EU court case
While Hungary continues to dispute this and eventually expects to recoup missing aid payments, the national budget will have to fill in the gaps to finance development programs in the meantime, Orban told the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in a speech.
“Just because we're right, it doesn't mean we're getting the money,” Orban said. “It can't be withheld forever, until then we'll have to prepay ourselves.”
Orban, who faces parliamentary elections in April, also vowed to phase out regulatory price caps -- implemented to curb accelerating inflation -- as soon as energy rates and other international factors turn more favorable.
The premier expects government policy to help bring down inflation below 6% by the end of the year from 7.9% in January, he said.
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