Hungary offers to scrap disputed legislation

AFP - Hungary's government is ready to consider modifying disputed legislation if the European Commission deems it necessary, Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi told the bloc's executive and European Union partners.

"We fully respect the authority of the European Commission, the guardian of the EU treaties," Martonyi wrote in a letter dated January 6 and published by his ministry on Tuesday.

"We stand ready to consider changing legislation, if necessary."

Hungary, which wants to secure a multibillion euro financing deal with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, is locked in a legal dispute with the European Central Bank and Brussels over a new central bank law.

The European Commission last month asked for the law, which it worried will compromise the bank's independence, to be repealed,

Martonyi said the government was ready to conduct dialogue with anyone who raised concrete concerns.