Majority of Hungarians believe government should be left out of distribution of EU funds, survey shows

A majority of the Hungarian population would join the European Public Prosecutor's Office and would prefer to leave the distribution of EU funds to local governments, NGOs and businesses rather than the government, a representative survey conducted by Závecz Research for RTL has found.

Závecz Research asked respondents to rate, on a scale of one to five, how confident they are that the European Union is able to monitor how countries use the funds they receive. Only 6 percent of respondents said they had complete confidence in the EU in this area, and 14 percent said they had no confidence at all. On average, respondents gave an average score of 2.9 for this, with a third of them rating the EU's effectiveness as either a 1 or a 2. The opinions of Hungarians on this question are largely similar, with no major differences depending on age, party affiliation or place of residence.

The vast majority of respondents would support joining the European Public Prosecutor's Office, with 42 percent of Hungarians strongly agreeing, and 33 percent agreeing that the country should join the EPPO and only 20 percent opposing it, according to Závecz's findings.

The survey also showed that Hungarians would prefer the government not to manage EU funds.

The majority (59 percent) believes that funds should be channelled directly to local governments, businesses and NGOs, leaving member state governments out of the equation, and only 36 percent think that national governments should be in charge of the managing and the distribution.